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A VISION 

OF LIFE INSURANCE 


BY 

EMMET C. MAY 

President Peoria Life Insurance Company 


PRESS OF 

EDWARD HINE & COMPANY 
PEORIA. ILLINOIS 



COPYRIGHTED 1921 
BY 

EMMET C. MAY 





TO 

Those men, the Officers and 
Directors of the Peoria Life, 

WHO RETAIN WITH ME THE MEMORY 
OF DAYS FILLED WITH TRIALS AND 
ANXIETY, BUT WHO WITHAL RE¬ 
MAINED LOYAL AND KEPT THE FAITH, 
THIS LITTLE VOLUME IS FONDLY 
DEDICATED. 



PREFACE 


In presenting this volume to the reader, 
it is with no thought nor intention that he 
have a connected explanation of the institu¬ 
tion of Life Insurance. This work is not one 
of continuity, but rather it is merely what its 
title implies—a Vision of Life Insurance. It 
is a collection and compilation of addresses 
and talks given on various occasions that 
have been rendered suitable to book form. It 
contains a series of subjects glimpsing inti¬ 
mately into the various phases of insurance 
from the standpoint of the man in the field. 
It is imbued more largely with the spirit of 
the “Peoria Life”, and hence is not, in the 
main, of a general nature. 

This work is not a text-book in life insur¬ 
ance; neither is it a course in salesmanship. 
It does, however, deal with the selling of that 
commodity. Throughout its chapters there 
may be found various discussions, beneficial, 
I sincerely trust, to the man presenting to 
the public a great and necessary article. If 


from the reading of its pages, a State Man¬ 
ager shall glean some new idea of helping his 
men, or if the sub-agent shall find some little 
inspiration, then this work shall, indeed, have 
been one of genuine joy. 

Emmet C. May. 

Peoria, Illinois, December 2, 1921. 


CONTENTS 


Chapter Page 

I. Reaping What You Sow in Life 

Insurance . 13 

II. Constructive Work of Life Insurance... 83 

III. Life Insurance the Profession Which 

Leads Them All.107 

IV. Keep Putting New Ideas Into Your 

Canvass.123 

V. The Duty of Every General Agent to 

Educate His Sub-Agents.139 

VI. Enthusiasm in Our Business.173 

VII. Plans for Educating the Agent.183 

VIII. Contagious Optimism.197 

IX. The Value of a Human Life.221 

X. Rights, Duties and Privileges in an 

Office .249 

XI. Faith as a Factor in Salesmanship.269 













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REAPING WHAT YOU SOW 
IN LIFE INSURANCE 



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CHAPTER I 

Reaping What You Sow in Life Insurance 

The person who has built himself up to 
the position of General or State Agent has 
gone a long way along life’s pathway of suc¬ 
cess, just as the politician feels that he has 
made a real accomplishment when he is 
chosen by popular vote for a great office; or 
as the financial man is thrilled with success 
when he finds himself holding the position of 
President of his bank; or as the ambitious 
lawyer feels when he has attained a judge- 
ship, just so should the General Agent or the 
State Agent feel, for indeed his profession is 
just as great. It places him in as much promi¬ 
nence as either; it gives him authority equal 
to either and it devolves upon him duties and 
obligations as great as any profession. Too 
few of us look with enough seriousness upon 
the duties and obligations of our positions. 

I haven’t words at my command to cor¬ 
rectly portray the profession of Life Insur¬ 
ance. Every person in the civilized world has 
within the past three years had visualized to 
him the great institution of Life Insurance. 
The banking business had to be established 
15 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

in the confidence of the public before the 
money would come out of hiding and find its 
way to the banks. The time was when it was 
the exception to place money in a bank. Fear 
for the safety of the hard earned money was 
sufficient cause to keep it guarded by one’s 
very person. But the banking business be¬ 
came established so well that never a thought 
is given today for any sum deposited. Why? 
Because public confidence is well established 
in the great Institution of Banking. What 
makes a bank? Not money! Not financial 
backing, but a man. It is usually not a group 
of men but some man, and that man is one 
who knows the banking business, knows men 
and human nature, and has come up from the 
very bottom of the business. Who are our 
greatest bankers? They are men who stand 
forth as the best men in the world—Frank 
Vanderlip, formerly of the National City 
Bank, the largest bank in the United States— 
a man who is a prince to know, a self-made 
man who knows the banking business be¬ 
cause he had to make a living at it and had 
to make good to do so. Take them all down 
the line and become intimately acquainted 
with them. Everyone of them are great men 
in their simplicity—not wonders—not phe¬ 
nomenons—not geniuses—but hard headed 
16 


REAPING WHAT YOU SOW 

men who have studied and labored and 
struggled and dreamed at night, and during 
the day by their labors have made their 
dreams come true. The first thing any one 
of them did was to make himself efficient. He 
worked himself through each job into the one 
next above by knowledge, ability and perse¬ 
verance. He never shirked or failed to take 
a hand at any task. He learned how. If 
there was no pathway broken he used his 
initiative and blazed a trail to results and to 
success. His fellow worker who was content 
to plod along in the same groove is still clerk¬ 
ing in the bank today. 

The first duty of a Life Insurance man in 
the position of a General or State Agency is 
to prepare himself for the position. He 
should realize that he has been assigned an 
important part in the great drama of life, a 
part which no one else can play. He has a 
chance to play a real part and make the whole 
scheme a success or he can wrap his talents 
in a napkin and make a failure. He has no 
right to impose upon his Company by holding 
such a responsible position without either 
having the ability when he begins it or acquir¬ 
ing it just as soon thereafter as time will per¬ 
mit. When he takes the position he is then 
just going into his freshman year in the busi- 
17 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

ness. It is much more important to him to 
make the passing grade that first year than 
it is for the young man in College to make 
his credits. I say is more important because 
he has a five-fold duty to perform. His first 
duty to succeed is to himself, his next is to 
his family, his next is to his Company, his 
next is to his policyholders, and last but not 
least to the public. Any one of them is suf¬ 
ficient to require any man to make his su¬ 
preme effort. 

How then should the General or State 
Agent prepare himself so that he will render 
the greatest and highest service and make of 
himself the biggest success? First he must 
know the Life Insurance business. I do not 
mean the technical side of the business. It is 
not necessary, nor do I think at all essential 
to success in the field to know the technical 
or actuarial side of the business. As proof 
of this we find the most miserable failures 
in the technical narrow men who are trying to 
sell by teaching the theory of Life Insurance 
to their prospects and we see the greatest suc¬ 
cesses in those men who know the business 
rather for what it does for humanity. To be 
sure every man in the business should thor¬ 
oughly inform himself of it but not necessarily 
to the point of thoroughness in the technical 
18 


REAPING WHAT YOU SOW 

side of it. Actuaries must do that in our 
business. There must be the technical man 
in all businesses but he is not the salesman. 
The General or State Agent must know how 
to do every detail of his Agency. I do not 
mean he must do them all, but he must know 
how to do them. Can the Engineer know 
how to run the locomotive without knowing 
how to care for every part of it? Every 
Sub-Agent looks up to the man who is his boss 
as a man who can and does do things. Few 
men ever get to the top without knowing the 
job of every man along the line from the 
very bottom. I verily believe that more men 
fail or make small success in General or State 
Agencies because they will not go among 
those whom they,hire and entrust with the 
building of the business, touching shoulders 
and clasping hands with them, and helping 
them to solve the problems of the business. 
Too many of them try to give them the absent 
treatment or carry on a poor correspondence 
school of building. How many of you would 
build a home by correspondence? Is an 
agency any different? Yes. It is of infinitely 
greater magnitude and importance to you. 

You will make a serious mistake if you 
employ any agent with whom you will not go 
over his territory and help him in his work. 

19 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

You are a bigger man than he—you have 
risen higher. Of you more is expected. You 
cannot and should not keep away from him. 
You cannot long get by with excuses for stay¬ 
ing away. Every additional excuse proves to 
your man that you are a counterfeit, that 
you cannot deliver the goods. Is there any 
more fascinating or interesting, yes, is there 
any more profitable thing that any agent can 
do than to go with a sub-agent and see and 
know the conditions in his field, know the 
problems he deals with? Then you know how 
to handle them. It was a noted characteristic 
of Frank Vanderlip, while in the National 
City Bank, that every one of the thousands 
of employees of that bank took pleasure in go¬ 
ing to him with their problems and their sug¬ 
gestions. In helping them work out their 
problems, he made himself the biggest Banker 
in the United States. Have you ever thought 
of your agency work in that light? If Bill 
Smith has an agency over at Elmwood he gets 
lonesome for the close personal touch of some 
one of his firm. He wants to tell some one 
about his troubles and his successes. When he 
has done so he feels better and the boss feels 
better. If he cannot do so maybe he will get 
sour and going into the wrong attitude will 
soon get into a rut which will lead him to 
20 


REAPING WHAT YOU SOW 

failure. Maybe a visit from you would have 
given him that better understanding and 
stimulant which would have led him to suc¬ 
cess. 

Another thing when you never see a cer¬ 
tain person for months you begin to form 
your opinions of him by a course of reason¬ 
ing and on theories. That reasoning is based 
on records and facts, maybe you have the 
facts wrong; but the most important element 
necessary for decision is absent—the person 
himself—the human element of it. An hour’s 
talk and visit changes that opinion to one of 
real merit. 

First, then the General or State Agent 
must believe in his Company and his goods 
so much that his presence and even his letters 
just ooze over with it all the time. Make that 
belief engender enthusiasm to such an extent 
that it is contagious. You have read about 
the soap salesman who had no help or encour¬ 
agement from his house. He was given sam¬ 
ples and prices and told to go out and sell 
soap. He failed. He saw other soap sales¬ 
men making good and making money but he 
could not. 

This story illustrates the psychology of 
belief in one’s goods: 


21 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

‘Thirty-two years ago I sold soap. I met 
a man that sold more soap than I did. I asked 
him, ‘How on earth do you sell so much soap?^ 
He said, ‘Mac, I will tell you, I eat it up!' 
‘What do you mean, you eat it up?' He said, 
‘If you would like to see me eat some of it 
come out with me tomorrow, and I will show 
you how I do it.' 

“I went out with that young man, and to 
make a long story short, when he came to the 
prospect, it was wash-day and he saw a lady 
put a piece of soap into some nice clear hot 
water. 

“He said, ‘Pardon me, is this soap?' The 
lady answered, ‘What did you think it was, 
black lead?' ‘Pardon me, again, but this 
gentleman with me sells soap. Have you a 
cake of soap with you, Mac?' I said, ‘No, I 
haven't any of my soap with me, I am not out 
selling soap.' He said, ‘Here's a piece of my 
soap, will you eat a little of it for the lady?' 
I said, ‘No, I am not eating soap today, you 
are the man that is going to eat the soap.' 

“Then he turned to the lady and pulled out 
a piece of his soap and said ,‘Lady, this soap 
will not hurt the finest fabric, it will remove 
lemon juice, fruit stains, dirt, mud, oil, grease, 
anything that ever was, and it cannot hurt 
22 


REAPING WHAT YOU SOW 

the finest fabric. I eat it every morning be¬ 
fore breakfast like that, lady^ and he began 
to chew it, you know, and swallowed it, look¬ 
ing at the lady all the time. 

^^Then he said, ‘Lady, that^s the kind of 
soap you want, I don^t blame this man for not 
eating his, I wouldn’t eat his soap either, but 
I am not afraid to eat this, for it is chem¬ 
ically pure, it hasn’t got a thing in it that will 
hurt anybody. How much do you want of it? 
I have only two minutes to talk to you,’ and 
he pulled out his watch. Now that was en¬ 
thusiasm, I say, that man believed in his 
product.” 

It is just as important that the General 
or State Agent be able to give the sub-agent 
the belief and enthusiasm which he needs to 
enable him to make good. 

Some thirty years or more ago, an old 
street fakir, dressed in a tall silk hat and a 
frock coat, was selling cough drops in the 
streets of Omaha. With a very hoarse voice 
he was crying his wares, “Cough Drops! 
Cough Drops! Ten cents a box! Who will 
be the next buyer?” Somebody yelled at him 
from the crowd, “Why in hell don’t you take 
one of them yourself?” The man replied, 
“Why yes. I didn’t think of that. I have been 
23 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

SO busy selling them, thaUs a good sugges¬ 
tion,^^ and he opened a fresh box, took out a 
cough drop, threw it in his mouth and began 
vigorously chewing it. In the next few min¬ 
utes he had swallowed it, and he at once yelled 
out, in a very loud voice, without a remnant 
of hoarseness, ‘‘Buy your cough drops now, 
they are going at ten cents a box. Who is the 
next one?’’ 

From that moment he proceeded to sell 
his cough drops because he believed in them; 
and so it is, a salesman must believe in his 
product himself. The time has gone by when 
a man can put over anything in which he does 
not believe. The buyer watches you, he is 
alert, he is watching the expression of your 
eyes and your mouth, and unless you yourself 
believe in your goods, you cannot hope to con¬ 
vince the buyer. 

The scarcest article of material for build¬ 
ing an agency is a good salesman. When you 
find one, take him into your inner circle. 
Make him welcome. Make him know you are 
a man. Show him you intend to help him 
make good. He depends upon you for knowl¬ 
edge and information about your business. 
Teach him—^give him all you have and help 
him to an early success. That is the object 
for which you hired him. Not only encour- 
24 


REAPING WHAT YOU SOW 


age and urge him along but absolutely be his 
instructor and train him until he is a success. 
Then you have accomplished something. Un¬ 
til then his blood is upon your hands if he is 
a failure. Until you contract with a man you 
are at liberty to size him up and investigate 
him and wonder about his success, but from 
the minute you allow him to sign a contract 
you are thereafter responsible for his success. 
By contracting with him you decide that he 
can make good, that he is a man you want 
associated with you. To fail to help him to 
your full capacity is treason to your profes¬ 
sion. Those who moan about the large num¬ 
ber of failures in the Life Agency work are 
those who do not hold out their hands in a 
helping way—in a co-operating way. I want 
to try and impress upon every General and 
State Agent the value and the absolute ne¬ 
cessity of thoroughly training, encouraging, 
and stimulating your agents after you have 
employed them. In training and developing 
your man you must first learn to know him. 
You must know his nature and along what 
lines he will develop. Search for the different 
impressions made upon his mind as a result 
of what has gone before and impress upon 
him his own position and his relation to you 
and to the Life Insurance business—create 


25 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

the right attitude—teach him the methods of 
your Agency and of your Company. 

If your agents are started in this way you 
need have no fear for them. They will not all 
be Members of the Hundred Thousand Club 
but they will account for the talents which 
they have—two—five or ten—and you will be 
happy. Not many of them will measure up 
to the hundred per cent standard you set. If 
they do they won’t be agents very long—^but 
you should make them sixty per cent at least 
of the standard you set. 

Every man you employ should be taught 
that he is a part of an organization—^your or¬ 
ganization—^which has a task to perform, not 
just a task for one man but for all the organi¬ 
zation. Teach him the rule that is taught to 
the Cornell Boat Team—“One for all—all for 
one.” From the first each man in the Uni¬ 
versity Boat Team is made to understand that 
his independent effort, no matter how extraor¬ 
dinary, does not count, that every position on 
the crew is just as good, just as dignified and 
just as honorable as any other. It must be 
one for all—and that one, the boat. “When 
the boat wins we win” is the constant thought. 
If every Manager made that spirit in his or¬ 
ganization, how much bigger would be his re¬ 
sults? Isn’t it worth trying? Let us remem- 
26 


REAPING WHAT YOU SOW 

ber that the chain is no stronger than its 
weakest link. If dependence is to be placed 
upon the chain we must either make each link 
strong or replace it with a new one. 

You must remember that the ‘‘training 
period’’ is a continual one. You must keep 
on training because, being human, salesmen 
keep drifting back-into their normal attitude, 
that is, the rut in which their minds ran prior 
to their advent in your organization. After 
a salesman has been in your organization for 
a time, he gets into a rut in which his mind 
will run peculiar to your business and its 
problems. 

First of all, the State Manager or General 
Agent should be a living example of the right 
attitude of a life insurance man. That right 
attitude can only be attained by the full 
knowledge of the business. Correct habits of 
reading and thinking should be studied and 
mastered. No life insurance man can be fifty 
per cent of what he ought to be unless he con¬ 
stantly studies his profession. How is the 
best way to study the life insurance business? 
First, the general principles of the business 
should be mastered. There are two or three 
good books upon this subject, one is Huebner’s 
“Text-Book on Life Insurance”; another one 
is “Life Insurance—What it is and What it 


27 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 


Does’’, by Alexander, and then there are sev¬ 
eral other books of very great value that the 
Manager or General Agent should read and 
understand. There is no Manager or General 
Agent who is not asked by his sub-agents, 
‘Vhat are the best books for me to read on life 
insurance?” Can you tell him? If you are not 
in a position to tell him then you have not 
risen to the position that you should occupy 
with your sub-agents. Then there is no man 
carrying a rate book that should fail to read 
‘‘The Insurance Salesman,” and other period¬ 
icals of that character. 

Your business is selling. The study of 
salesmanship should be a continual course 
with you. There is a magazine published 
called “Sales Management.” It is very fine for 
anyone to read who deals with the public. 
There is also another called “Salesmanship,” 
which is very good. The man who thinks 
about his business and who wants to drive 
himself ahead and make himself more than 
the average man, should be thoroughly posted 
on his profession. The life insurance man 
should be thoroughly posted on salesmanship, 
not alone life insurance salesmanship but 
every other salesmanship that enters into sell¬ 
ing. It takes that broad knowledge to be able 
to deal with humanity in a way that will make 
28 


REAPING WHAT YOU SOW 

it profitable to you in the life insurance busi¬ 
ness. Books on psychology will give any sales¬ 
man ideas that are of great value to him. I 
do not mean that he should master psychology 
so far as it deals with the mind, but applied 
psychology which gives you the right methods 
and shorter methods and accurate methods of 
doing things is worth anybody’s time and 
effort in studying. 

The time of the salesman who goes out 
over his territory in a haphazard manner, 
taking orders from his customers for what¬ 
ever class of goods he is selling, is past and 
gone. There are certain classes of goods 
which it does not take any ability to sell. 
There are certain staple articles that a gro¬ 
cery man has to carry that if the salesman 
did not come around he would order by mail 
because he has to have them to run his store. 
There is no salesmanship in selling this class 
of goods. There is no salesmanship in selling 
to a dry goods store the things that it neces¬ 
sarily has to have in order to operate the store, 
but it does take ability, it does take judgment, 
it does take a head to sell life insurance and 
build up a general agency to success. If it 
takes study and planning and hard work in 
order to make success in personal production, 
it takes comparatively more application of 
29 


^ VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

every one of a person’s faculties to be success¬ 
ful in a state management or a general agency 
because of the very fact that the Manager or 
General Agent has a two-fold duty to perform. 
He must make good himself personally in 
selling. He must be able to teach others how 
to sell and make of themselves the kind of a 
success that will brand his agency as success¬ 
ful. Whenever a person has the proper 
knowledge about his business, when he is well 
posted on facts which constitute his business 
and knows how to apply them successfully, he 
has built up within himself a confidence that 
will carry him far along the road to success, 
and self-confidence is just as necessary for 
success as any other element of a salesman. 
There is no big result obtained at any time 
without preparation. There is no person in 
the life insurance business or any other busi¬ 
ness who just falls into success. When 
Webster delivered his great reply to Hayne, 
he said himself that he had been thirty years 
in preparation for that speech—thirty years 
of collecting his thoughts and storing his mind 
full of the facts touching upon his business. 
He was a statesman and it was necessary for 
him to store up his mind with that knowledge 
which when called upon would brand him 
30 


REAPING WHAT YOU SOW 

either an ordinary man or an extraordinary 
man. 

To the life insurance agent it is just as 
important to keep his mind stored full of the 
things that will make his business great as it 
is for any other kind of a profession. In other 
words, the preparation for the accomplish¬ 
ments in the life insurance business must just 
as surely be made out of the field as in any 
other kind of business. The engineer on the 
railroad does not defer getting up steam un¬ 
til he is on the track. He does that in the 
roundhouse and when he is coupled up to the 
train he is ready to go full speed. With the 
life insurance Manager and General Agent 
his life should be one long study and prepara¬ 
tion for the great events of his business. If 
he applies himself and studies in the way that 
he should, these great events are going to 
come to him in big results. Instead of wast¬ 
ing the hours that you spend on the trains, 
around the lobbies of hotels, around the towns 
and in your home, doing nothing, just for a 
few months turn that wasted time to the 
study of life insurance business—to the study 
of salesmanship—to the study of psychology, 
and see what you will make of yourself dur¬ 
ing that short a period. Everything that you 
learn in your study will associate with it 
31 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

something that will lead you further on into 
your business and your study will become not 
only a pleasure but a fascination which you 
cannot tear yourself away from. This will 
make you face the world each day with a con¬ 
fidence in yourself that you are going to meet 
anything that comes up in your business with 
credit to yourself and credit to the profession, 
that you are going to have at your command 
the proper answer, the proper analysis, and 
the proper argument to make sales. The 
knowledge that you are well informed gives 
you that self-confidence which will make you 
a leader in your profession. It does not take 
eloquence to make sales in the life insurance 
business. Every insurance salesman can make 
a statement pertaining to life insurance more 
clearly than the greatest orator in the world 
because he is not familiar with the facts re¬ 
garding the business and also because you 
would clothe your thoughts and your state¬ 
ments in the right kind of language that 
would carry home and bring results. You do 
not need the technical knowledge of the life 
insurance business. You do not need to be 
actuaries. You do not need to be able to ana¬ 
lyze an annual statement. You do not need to 
be able to tear a premium to pieces and ana¬ 
lyze all its contents, but you do need to know 
32 


REAPING WHAT YOU SOW 

human nature. You do need to know what 
life insurance does—you do need to know 
what it will do for the prospect that you ex¬ 
pect to sell. By the proper knowledge of your 
business and by the proper attitude toward 
it, you cannot help but influence other people 
in the way that you want to. 

The scarcest thing in all the world is a 
real man—the hardest thing in the world to 
find is a fully developed human being—a man 
who has gone down into himself and knows 
his own possibilities and is applying himself 
accordingly. There are so many lopsided men 
—half men—well developed in one phase of 
their business but woefully deficient in every 
other. The well developed man is the one who 
goes the farthest in the race. You can weigh 
only what you are. We remember the story 
of the little boy who wanted to weigh more 
than his playmate. So when he got on the 
scale he puffed out his cheeks and swelled up 
like a frog—but he did not weigh any more. 
The Manager or General Agent of all others 
must be a man fully developed in all phases 
of his business, a well informed man. He may 
get by with his agents a little while, but a few 
evasive answers, a few sidesteps, and they 
know him for just what he is. He cannot 
weigh any more than he is. The head of the 
33 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANTCE 

biggest and most profitable agency in the 
United States is Woods of Pittsburgh. He is 
a thoroughly informed man. He can go into 
the field with any sub-agent and help him sell; 
he can train his sub-agents; he can lecture on 
any insurance subject; he can and does do 
anything connected with his agency. That is 
the secret by which he has made it the great¬ 
est agency. He is a thoroughly informed and 
well-developed man, a success which any 
Manager may well take as a model. 

No matter what the agent may think 
about his duty and about what he should do 
in his personal production, the State Manager 
or General Agent must always think of the 
constant upbuilding of his business. He must 
have this uppermost in his mind all the time. 
When we recognize that to be a fact, the man 
who enters the life insurance business for his 
life work should be willing at all times to de¬ 
vote as much effort to developing himself as 
he would if engaged in any other profession. 
An attorney or physician cannot progress far 
or fast on the skill which he acquires only 
from experience, but he must study and work 
and keep himself entirely up-to-date all the 
time. It is no less necessary for the life in¬ 
surance man to study and fortify himself. 

34 


REAPING WHAT YOU SOW 


The great inspirational writer, Orison 
Swett Harden, in his book ^'Everybody 
Ahead’’ has some fine thoughts on the subject: 

At country fairs men sometimes enter horses 
for the races without any special thought, or con¬ 
fidence,^ of their winning; they just want to see what 
they will do. They do not exercise or train them 
down fine, and enter them with a determination to 
win the prize, as the professional racer does; and, 
of course, they do not win. 

Multitudes of young men enter their vocations 
in a similar way, without any preparation or any 
special thought of winning out. They just get a 
job, perhaps the first that comes along, regardless 
of whether it fits their particular bent, with a view 
of changing if they do not happen to like the work, 
or if it is too difficult. They are the ‘floaters' who 
have no definite goal in view, who do not prepare 
for their life work, and who never get anywhere. 
Only the young man who has had a thorough train¬ 
ing, who lays a broad and solid foundation for his 
future career, and who enters the race determined 
to succeed, can reach the winning post. 

There was a time in our early history when 
some American youths without much education or 
any special training achieved most remarkable suc¬ 
cesses, but today competition has become so severe 
that the chances of success for the uneducated, un¬ 
trained man or woman are practically nil. 

Yet notwithstanding all this, we see people on 
every hand going into undertakings which require 
years of the most exacting preparation, discipline 

35 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 


and training, with little education and no training. 
We see men and women trying to write books, or to 
correspond for the press, who know little of the 
structure of language, and are ignorant of the rudi¬ 
ments of grammar, the laws of logic, the principles 
of rhetoric, or the rules of English composition. 

Others are dabbling in art, or studying elocu¬ 
tion, music, medicine, oratory, or some other pro¬ 
fession, without any stable foundation on which to 
build. They struggle on without any chance of suc¬ 
cess, often unable to make even the most precarious 
living, because they did not prepare for their work. 
They didn’t think it worth while, did not think it 
necessary to spend years laying foundations under¬ 
ground. They wanted to put in their work where 
it would count immediately, where people would see 
it. They were not willing to bury some of the best 
years of their youth out of sight, in making a base 
for life’s superstructure. When too late, after youth 
has passed, they awaken to the magnitude of their 
mistake. 

I have known some very pathetic cases of men 
who, because they did not when young appreciate 
the importance of an education and a superb train¬ 
ing for their careers, found themselves in middle 
life, goaded on by an ambition which they could not 
satisfy because they had not had the early training 
needed as the groundwork of success. They were 
compelled to go through life doing comparatively 
little things, continually handicapped by their ignor¬ 
ance, when they had superb native ability had it 
only been trained. 

I knew a judge on the bench who got there 
36 


REAPING WHAT YOU SOW 


through ^'puir\ who used to study nights, and Sun¬ 
days and holidays, to make up for his lack of early 
education. He said he had begun to study law when 
a youth, and did not think a College course would 
help him, and now found himself greatly handi¬ 
capped by the fact that he was not well read, that 
he knew very little about history, and that his gen¬ 
eral education was very deficient. 

Another man who left school as a boy, after 
working around at odd jobs for a short time, started 
out for himself in a little business, but he knew 
almost nothing of arithmetic, had not the slightest 
idea how to keep books, and the result was that after 
losing what little capital he had his business went 
to pieces. He was plucky, however, and started 
again; and to make up his deficiencies used to work 
late at night studying, but he nearly ruined his 
health, trying to do with great difficulty and pains 
what he could have done so easily in his youth. 

This is a sample of what we see in every de¬ 
partment of life. Only a short time ago I met a 
school teacher, who had managed through influence 
to get a school in the country, who knew almost 
nothing about the subjects he had to teach. He told 
me that he had to work hard nights and Sundays to 
keep ahead of his pupils. 

In this country, as perhaps in no other, young 
people go into business and professions half pre¬ 
pared. In some countries the domestic servants are 
trained for their work. Household service is a pro¬ 
fession with them. But our young people rush into 
housekeeping and enter all sorts of occupations 


37 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 


without training, and take their chances of making 
up for their lacks and deficiencies later. 

If we were to examine the men and women in 
the great failure army of today we should find that 
most of them never half prepared for their life 
work. 

People who are trying to rear the superstruc¬ 
ture of their lives on a foundation of ignorance are 
in the position of an army that should start out on 
a campaign without provisions or supplies of any 
kind, or without being armed. 

It has been said that battles are nearly always 
lost or won before the conflict takes place. The 
army which has taken pains to fortify every weak 
point, to equip itself in the most thorough manner 
for every possible exigency, to make an exhaustive 
study of the ground on which the battle is to be 
fought, and to plan beforehand for every emergency 
that is liable to arise, is the one to which victory 
is most likely to fall. 

The same thorough preparation is necessary for 
the man who would succeed in the battle of life. 
He must be fortified at every point by a superb 
preparation, by the training of every faculty of his 
being. 

I was once in what is called a “rush"’ town. The 
place had only a short time before been opened up 
for settlement, and there had been a grand rush 
for building sites. Buildings of all sorts had been 
rushed up in great haste, with very poor founda¬ 
tions. Some of them had no basement or cellar, 
practically no foundation, the timbers being placed 
right on the surface of the ground. Of course in a 

38 


REAPING WHAT YOU SOW 


few years these began to rot, and the superstruc¬ 
tures were in a dangerous condition, continually 
needing patching and propping to keep them from 
toppling over. 

Many people start their careers in a similar 
way, without any foundation, and sooner or later 
they come to grief, and then wonder why they have 
made such a botch of their careers. They lay their 
failures to hard luck, big trusts, lack of opportunity, 
and to all sorts of reasons but the right one—lack 
of preparation. 

Every young man who makes himself master 
of the details of his calling or profession is sure to 
succeed in time. Nor will he find himself crowded 
much after the race starts. It is because so few do 
this that there are so many failures or only near¬ 
successes. 

‘Tf I were twenty, and had but ten years to 
live,” said a great writer and scholar, ^T would spend 
the first nine years accumulating knowledge and 
getting ready for the tenth.” 

If you expect a broad, grand career, lay your 
foundation accordingly. Be generous with your 
preparation. Let it be just as solid and substantial 
and broad as possible. Do not risk your life struc¬ 
ture upon a little picayune, insecure foundation. Let 
everything you do point to a magnificent edifice. 

What is the first step to put one's self in a con¬ 
dition of preparedness for life? There is but one 
answer. To get the broadest possible education. 
Nothing else will stand you in so good stead as to 
start on your career with a trained brain, a well- 
disciplined mind, a well-equipped mentality. Then 
you are a power wherever you go. It does not mat- 

39 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 


ter what field we consider, intelligence has been the 
secret of advance. If a little intelligence is good, 
if a fair education pays, a wider education, a broader 
culture, will indeed give you at the very outset an 
incalculable advantage. 

If I had to begin my career over again and was 
offered the choice of capital and no education, or 
education and no capital, I should unhesitatingly 
choose the latter. People in every line of endeavor 
are being constantly surprised by what someone has 
wrought in the same line through bringing a supe¬ 
rior intelligence, a broader education, a finer dis¬ 
cipline to bear upon it. Most people look upon this 
as a happy hit. But it is the luck which comes from 
a better trained mind, from a larger outlook, more 
skill, better training, persistent endeavor, and un¬ 
daunted courage. 

FIXING THE SALES TASK 

When a State Manager or General Agent 
has arisen to his position, it is very import¬ 
ant for him to realize the task v^hich he has 
at hand. It is not sufficient for him to receive 
his contract and sit in his office and wait for 
business to come to him. This will not de¬ 
velop territory. The man who takes a Gen¬ 
eral Agency or a State Management without 
a thorough knowledge in his own mind of 
what the territory ought to produce for his 
own Company, has not seen the phase of his 
business in the way that will make of him a 
40 


REAPING WHAT YOU SOW 

better success. If the territory to be handled 
is a state then the manager should know all 
about the state. He should know the popula¬ 
tion. He should know the general character 
of the people in the many different localities 
of the state. He should know the principal 
industries, manufacturies, and businesses. 
He should know the wealth of the state in the 
different localities. He should know what is 
peculiar to each locality. He should at once 
inform himself on the different peculiarities 
so that he will know how to deal with every 
condition as he meets it. One course will de¬ 
velop one territory but it takes an entirely 
different one to develop some others. He may 
not have this knowledge when he takes up the 
work. That is very likely, but if he has been 
in the work for one year and then does not 
have this knowledge, he has not developed 
himself. He has not taken the interest in his 
work that he ought to take. If a man in the 
life insurance business wants to know what 
the developments are in his territory he can 
easily find out this data. The Government 
publishes a great many statistics of this kind 
and there are many Companies who report 
data that it is very important for the agent to 
have at hand. The Harvard Press issues a 
book called “Business Statistics”, which is 
41 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

fine. The point in this is just this, the agent 
who goes out to sell to the public wants to put 
himself as nearly on common ground with his 
prospect as possible and the more knowledge 
he has about the prospect’s business, the 
sooner he will get on that common ground. It 
is not necessary that you have absolute tech¬ 
nical knowledge about a man’s business to be 
well informed on it, but if you are talking 
with a banker you should know something 
about the banking business in the locality. 
You should know something about conditions, 
at least conditions in the state or the county. 
The life insurance man should inform him¬ 
self upon these things if he expects to get 
ahead, especially should the Manager or Gen¬ 
eral Agent, because in dealing with your sub¬ 
agents you will then know something about 
the conditions that obtain in a territory and 
you will know at once whether or not they have 
the right idea of their territory and its value. 
There is a bigger and better reason why the 
Manager or General Agent should have this 
knowledge. He necessarily must have it in 
order to fix the value of that territory for him 
and for his agency. Every year when the 
Company fixes allotments for a state, the ele¬ 
ment of population, of wealth, of the condi¬ 
tions in that state, enter very largely into 
42 


REAPING WHAT YOU SOW 

the making up of that quota and then the 
Agent or Manager who is to produce this re¬ 
sult is taken into consideration, too. 

Therefore, at the beginning of the year, 
the Manager or General Agent^s first duty is 
to make a complete survey of his territory. 
Decide what it is worth to him, how much he 
can make it produce for him during the calen¬ 
dar year and he should make that decision 
from an intelligent knowledge of the condi¬ 
tions of his territory. Then he can fix his 
sales task and that sales task for the year 
should be as much as he values the territory. 
If the territory during this year is worth one 
million dollars to him, he ought to then fix 
that value upon it and after he has fixed that 
value he should work out his plans whereby 
he can realize and make the territory produce 
for him the value that he has set for it. Too 
many of our Managers and General Agents 
lack the knowledge of their territory. Too 
many argue upon the theory that over in 
Montgomery county there ought to be pro¬ 
duced ^^quite a big volume of business this 
year.^^ When it is fixed on that kind of an 
idea the chances are there will be nothing 
produced. But if the Manager has said that 
^^Montgomery county must this year produce 
a quarter of a million of business for me and 
43 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

I am going to see that it is produced because 
that county owes it to me”, then Montgomery 
county is going to produce for him as much 
or more than the task that he has set for it. 
It is almost as important to fix the sales task 
in the beginning of an agency and at the be¬ 
ginning of each year as it is to lay definite 
plans for production. In fact, it is the very 
foundation of those definite plans which bring 
results. 

SELECTION OF SALESMEN 
Where shall we get our salesmen? Where 
shall we get our sub-agents? This is the 
question that is first in the mind of every 
State Manager and every General Agent. 
This is a most interesting subject. The his¬ 
tory of this subject as it works out in the dif¬ 
ferent agencies is a still more interesting sub¬ 
ject. We see one Manager or General Agent 
contracting with as many men as he can take 
care of and just as fast as he can get to them, 
giving them the proper time and educating 
and making them successes in the business. 
We see other managers plodding along year 
in and year out, never adding a full time man 
to their forces. What is the reason? Some¬ 
times it is one thing, sometimes another. 
Very often it is a lack of energy—a lack of 
44 


REAPING WHAT YOU SOW 

work. The Manager or General Agent that 
feels that if men want to work for him they 
should come to him and seek a position, will 
never develop anything. Others put in their 
time hunting for experienced life insurance 
men. This class of managers never has any 
money either. If a life insurance man has 
been a success he has stayed with his Com¬ 
pany. If he is worth anything his Company 
has not let him leave because he will have been 
so satisfied that he will not be attracted by 
any other person. Experience in the Life In¬ 
surance business should not be considered 
with much favor in hiring men—experience 
is just as apt to be dangerous as beneficial. 
Your agency and your Company have certain 
formulated rules and standards and the fel¬ 
low who has worked for some other Company 
has accumulated certain experiences and as a 
rule he is forever telling you of those experi¬ 
ences and bringing them up to explain away 
everything that he has not done that he should 
have done, and to excuse himself for every¬ 
thing that he has done wrong. Many of 
these managers and general agents have no 
idea or conception of. the person who will make 
a successful sub-agent. It does not take a 
wonder or a genius to make a sub-agent. 
Do not look for them, because you cannot 
45 


A VISION OF LIFE INSUEANCE 

find them. You cannot interest them if 
you could. You cannot pay them if you did 
find them. But the man who will develop in 
a local agency is that person who wants to 
make money; that person who wants to take 
up a business that will give him a living; that 
person who is not afraid to start to work at 
eight o’clock in the morning or earlier if 
necessary, and does not know any quitting 
time until his task is done for the day. That 
is the kind of man who will make a success 
for you. 

The kind of man who has all the business 
in his locality in his vest pocket is not worth 
fifteen cents a thousand. The man who has 
been in politics until he has a particular chair 
that he likes to sit in most of the day and does 
not feel comfortable any place else, has no 
place in the life insurance business. But let 
me tell you that the man who has worked in 
the local bank and in the grain office and in 
the lumber office and on the road as a sales¬ 
man where he had to work in order to make 
his month’s wages, is the kind of man who 
will make a success in the life insurance busi¬ 
ness. Traveling salesmen are the best class 
to follow because they have some knowledge 
of how to sell and very often are very good 
salesmen. That knowledge can all be turned 
46 


REAPING WHAT YOU SOW 

to life insurance and can be used by him just 
as well in the life insurance business as in his 
other business. Pick the man who has an in¬ 
centive to do something—who is earnest and 
who has some vision of the business. The 
man who just tries it wants your time and 
that means he wants your money. 

Let’s make a firm resolution not to con¬ 
tract with any of that class of agents who go 
around over their territory trying to bluff the 
man into buying a life insurance policy—that 
type of salesman who goes into the corner 
cigar store with all the profanity that he is 
proud to be master of and entertains the 
crowd for a while. Let’s not have him as a 
disgrace to our profession. Let him disgrace 
some other line of salesmanship and we will 
thereby save dollars and cents during the 
year. 

There are three classes of people. First, 
there is the fellow who goes and gets—the 
Go-Getter; second, the fellow who goes but 
does not get; and, third, the fellow who does 
not go at all. Always avoid the last, try to 
avoid the second, but handcuff yourself to the 
first and be sure and keep him. In the selec¬ 
tion of salesmen, select men. Men who are 
eager for success, not big success, not phe¬ 
nomenal records, but who want to make a 
47 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

living and who want to do something that is 
good for them; who do not have the idea of a 
spectacular career but who want to do the 
things that are human. Those are the kind 
of salesmen that will build up your agency. 
Then if you handle those men upon a uni¬ 
form contract, a uniform commission, graded 
perhaps upon volume of business, you will 
have made a selection of your salesmen, you 
will have them all under one kind of contract, 
so that no matter what happens you can look 
every man in the eye and say to him that he 
can be just as big as any other agent in your 
territory if he will do so. Your men thus 
selected and managed will be loyal, success¬ 
ful men, and will always be living advertise¬ 
ments for you and will always be on the look¬ 
out for other salesmen for you—agents se¬ 
cured through them will usually be success¬ 
ful, too. 

STANDARDIZING THE SALES TALK 

I have always thought myself that every 
state management and every general agency 
should have as its principal object the stand¬ 
ardizing of the sales talk in that agency. The 
Manager or the General Agent has some pe¬ 
culiarities of his own that have made him a 
success. He has learned to sell insurance in 
some way that has been a successful way or 
48 


REAPING WHAT YOU SOW 

he would never be holding his present posi¬ 
tion. One of his duties in building up his 
agency is to educate and instruct his sub¬ 
agents, then why not educate and instruct 
them all in one way? Why not standardize 
his sales talk so that every place in his terri¬ 
tory, every place that he has an agency, the 
general principles of the sales talk will be ex¬ 
actly the same? How much stronger, how 
much easier it will be for the Manager or 
General Agent to make conditions easier and 
better, not only today and this year but for 
years to come, if he follows this principle. If 
the Manager or General Agency required 
every agent that takes up the work full time 
to go through a certain course of education, 
a certain course of instruction, that would 
educate him on the policies of the Company, 
on the methods of salesmanship, and if the 
Manager decides what that should be, then 
that sub-agent would be imbued with the edu¬ 
cation along one line which would help him 
to make a greater success. The knowledge 
and education would be easier to impart to 
the sub-agent because it would become a 
matter of routine with the Manager and 
would make the sub-agent several times 
stronger than in any other way that he could 
be educated. This can be standardized by a 
49 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

certain line of information for you to give the 
sub-agent and require him to take it. If he 
be not interested enough to acquire that 
knowledge and information, he is not worth 
contracting with. The National Cash Reg¬ 
ister Company, the Burroughs Adding Ma¬ 
chine Company, and most every other big suc¬ 
cessful firm requires every salesman to take 
a course of salesmanship with them before 
they let him go forth as their representative. 
He is the very firm itself in his territory. 
Should not the Life Insurance business be as 
well represented? The usual education that 
a sub-agent gets is what he obtains from his 
rate book and policies and an occasional visit 
from the Manager. That is not fair to him 
and is a waste of raw material for the Man¬ 
ager. It would be considered very poor busi¬ 
ness for a manufacturing concern to buy a 
quantity of iron ore to be used in their busi¬ 
ness and leave it piled up to waste for years 
and years. Nothing would ever come of the 
money invested. It would be considered very 
poor business on the part of a farmer to pay 
out his good money for a binder and let it sit 
on the edge of the field and rust. How much 
poorer judgment is it on the part of a Man¬ 
ager of a life insurance agency to pay out 
good money and good time in the employment 
50 


REAPING WHAT YOU SOW 

of a man whom he has decided is worthy of a 
contract, furnish him with supplies, and then 
let him drift, let him lie at the side of the 
road; let him sit on the edge of the field and 
rust; let him go forth and represent you as 
best he can while you sit in your office and 
wonder why there are so many failures in the 
life insurance business. Every State Man¬ 
ager and every General Agent is directly 
responsible for nine-tenths of the failures in 
the life insurance business. If you deter¬ 
mine that the man is not going to be a 
success, that he is not of sufficient calibre 
to make a successful agent for you, 
then do not contract with him. But if 
you do contract with him perform your 
duty and help him make a success, or rather 
let us put it the other way. It is your duty 
to make a success of every member of your 
agency force. Your task as Manager is not 
done when you have employed your sub-agent, 
nor is it done when you have given him a line 
of instruction which enables him to sell. You 
ought to go further than that. You ought to 
keep continually teaching him how to make 
good in a bigger and better way. 

Teach your sub-agent how to organize his 
territory and get men to working for him and 
to helping him. Teach him to imagine his 
51 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

agency. If you can get him to imaging the 
agency which he wants to build and taking 
the action to establish that imaginative 
agency of his, then success will follow just as 
sure as you have him doing it. It is impor¬ 
tant that you awaken in the mind of every¬ 
one of your sub-agents the imagination which 
will go a long way toward* helping him make 
a success. You know after all he expects just 
as much from you as you expect from the 
Company and sometimes that is a whole lot. 
If the Company left you stranded and paid 
no attention to your agency, gave you no as¬ 
sistance, did not co-operate with you in any 
way, you would feel very much hurt and 
justly so. You would feel that the Company 
had not done its part. Have you ever 
thought that your sub-agents think exactly 
the same way about you? If you have thought 
that way you must have responded to your 
thoughts and gone and helped the agent to 
make good. If you haven’t thought about it 
in that light, now is the time you should begin 
thinking about it. You have a duty there 
which is sacred, a duty that extends farther 
than merely to your sub-agent. It reverts 
backward to the Company. It extends to your 
family. It extends to yourself. It extends 
to the business in so much as you are looking 
52 


REAPING WHAT YOU SOW 


to them for success. If you do not do your 
duty, then you are not trying to your full 
capacity. We shall expect to give our Man¬ 
agers and General Agents working directly 
with the Company good and complete train¬ 
ing, but we shall expect and require of you, 
in turn, to give your sub-agents the same kind 
of help, training, and education. 

AVERAGE COST OP NEW AGENTS 

Have you ever sat down in the evening 
and figured up just how much it costs you to 
put on one of your sub-agents? Have you 
ever taken the trouble to make an estimate 
of what every one of your sub-agents’ con¬ 
tracts cost you? You know to do this you 
must take every one of the failures and every 
one of the successes and strike an average. 
You ought to know what the average cost is. 
You ought to know that as a matter of pro¬ 
tection. You cannot make a contract in your 
territory that does not cost you good money. 
Your time given to the sub-agent must be fig¬ 
ured as so much money. If you spend only a 
little time educating that man, if you spend 
a little time working with him, then that is a 
part of the cost. You should know whether 
your sub-agents will cost you fifty dollars or 
a hundred dollars or five hundred dollars. 


63 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

We know what our agents cost us on an aver¬ 
age. We know what it costs to establish an 
agency. We know that when we make a con¬ 
tract with a full time man that there is going 
to be a certain amount of outlay. On some 
it is greater than others but we know what 
the general average is and so should every 
Manager. This will be an interesting sub¬ 
ject to you after you have figured it over. 
After you sit down and figure just what your 
agents are costing you, you will be surprised. 
Perhaps you never have thought of the sub¬ 
ject and if you were asked about it now you 
would say—^^Oh, practically nothing.^’ Take 
your pencil and figure it out and see if you 
then answer it in the same way. But this is 
important to the Manager and to the General 
Agents because it is a part of their business. 
It is a part of the cost that you must reckon 
with in arriving at your profit. See if your 
average cost does not run about as follows: 


Railroad fare. 

3 weeks work with him.. 

.$300.00 

$ 25.00 

Less 1/2 commission. 

. 150.00 

150.00 

3 trips to visit him. 


25.00 

Total. 


$200.00 


I hope that there is not a Manager that 
we have who in thirty days from now will not 
be able to tell exactly what the average cost 
54 








REAPING WHAT YOU SOW 

of his agents is and then reckon with that 
cost during the coming year. 

FIXING THE QUOTA 

How should the Manager or General 
Agent establish the quotas for his agents? 
This is one of the important subjects of every 
agency. It is easy enough to say that Bill 
Smith ought to produce $100,000.00 of busi¬ 
ness this year, but suppose someone asks you 
why he should do so. That ought to be a suf¬ 
ficient query to make the Manager or General 
Agent think a good deal. There are several 
ways of fixing quotas but the rnost accepted 
way for the life insurance business is to fix 
the quota upon territory, population, and 
wealth as managed by a man of certain abil¬ 
ity. In other words, the manager should 
know the territory, its population and its 
wealth, and general conditions and then he 
should fix in his mind just what that terri¬ 
tory ought to owe to his agency. Then he 
should turn his attenton to the person to 
whom he looks for this production. One agent 
in a certain territory can produce $100,000.00 
worth of business while another agent of a 
different type in the same territory can 
double that business. All this should be taken 
into consideration in fixing the quota. If the 
agent has not the ability to produce some- 
55 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

where near the amount of business that the 
territory owes to the general agency, then he 
is not the person to have charge of that ter¬ 
ritory. Perhaps if you have fixed the quota 
for the agent and he has fallen down on it, 
you will want to reckon with him at the close 
of the year or at the beginning of another 
year. You do not want a continual failure in 
the territory which should be productive for 
you and perhaps it will be necessary for you 
to cut down his territory. It may be neces¬ 
sary for you to change him from one locality 
to another. There may be some reason why 
he is falling down. There may be some pe¬ 
culiarity that he has in some particular ter¬ 
ritory that will not obtain in another terri¬ 
tory. An arbitrary quota should be fixed for 
the territory standpoint alone and then this 
quota should be given to the agent and that 
quota should grow and increase with each 
year because the agency which is not growing, 
is not increasing, is not progressing, is not 
the kind of an agency that will help build a 
state or a general agency. 

Then spend a great deal of time in fixing 
the quotas for the different agencies in your 
territory. Fix them on a fair and square 
basis; fix them at a figure which the agent can 
reach and then insist upon him reaching the 
56 


REAPING WHAT YOU SOW 

quota. If he does not do so at the end of the 
year, then know why and unless it is a rea¬ 
sonable excuse and a very good excuse, you 
cannot afford to continue that agency; you 
cannot afford to have within your territory 
an agency which is not grading up. It is just 
pulling back that much on your plans. May¬ 
be you might argue that, 'Well, Bill Smith 
is a good sort of a fellow and I hate to let him 
go,’’ but remember when you see that argu¬ 
ment that you are just living one life; that you 
are not going to be able to come back and take 
up these lines and work them out on another 
plan. You have to go through this life just one 
way and make your success or your failure 
as you go along. Time wasted with an agent 
who is proving himself a failure in your busi¬ 
ness is not only time wasted for you, but is 
absolutely a crime if you persist" in it. Do not 
let sentiment enter into your plans after you 
have given the man more than a temporary 
consideration. Most men are too easy v/ith 
themselves. They find all kinds of excuses 
for their failures. They blame everything 
but the right thing. The trouble is with 
themselves; we know it; they know it, too, but 
usually will not admit it. A good reasonable 
excuse is to be considered but an excuse that 
obtains year in and year out and when at 
57 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

the close of the year you hear the same old 
story that if conditions hadn’t been so and so, 
a wonderful record would have been made, 
grows so tiresome that it is not an excuse, it 
is just simply an attempt to get by. And the 
Manager who tolerates that kind of a busi¬ 
ness is in turn trying to get by with his 
Company. 

DEVELOPING THE SALESMAN 
More local agents fall down and make 
poor successes in the life insurance business 
through wrong instruction than any other 
way. The development of a salesman is what 
makes him go ahead, stand still, or go back¬ 
ward. If a salesman is taught to begin at 
the bottom, to begin in a modest way, to begin 
just like the steam shovel begins to make an 
excavation for a great building, then there is 
nothing that can keep him from making a 
success. We read in history that there was a 
certain locality in France in which the people 
were very frugal, very economical and very 
prosperous. Do you remember that these 
people were forced through conditions to 
leave their locality and settle somewhere close 
to Berlin in Germany? Do you also remem¬ 
ber the very interesting story that is related 
of them, that when they moved every man, 
woman and child carried with them a sack of 


58 


REAPING WHAT YOU SOW 

earth to enrich the soil in their new homes? 
The country to which they were going was 
poor and rocky and barren and by this earth 
which they carried with them it was enriched. 
These same people later were forced to emi¬ 
grate again and they came to Pennsylvania. 
They are known today as the Pennsylvania 
Dutch, the most frugal, most prosperous, and 
most interesting of our people, that class of 
people who still take their compensation from 
the soil, who today keep foremost in their 
minds the ideas which were taught to them 
by their forefathers of making their country 
bloom and making every bit of it produce as 
it should. How much greater would be the 
life insurance business and how much more 
productive would be the agent if there was 
just a little more of that idea inculcated into 
each one of the sub-agents who are employed 
in a general agency. 

If everyone of the local agents was taught 
his lesson in the beginning, that he must be¬ 
gin in a modest way, that he must look to 
each item of his business, that he must obtain 
it as cheaply as possible, that he must lay the 
foundation in every sale that he makes so that 
it will bring another sale, then he will make 
of himself a success. He would build from 
the ground up. But too many of our sales- 
59 


. A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

men, too many of our general agencies adopt 
the plan of beginning at the top and working 
down. The local agent feels that he must at 
once be placed in a nice office; that he must 
have a lot of help around him; that he must 
take on a lot of agents immediately, when 
what he really needs is applications, what he 
really needs is personal production, what he 
needs most*of all is a development of his own 
self. There is no person that can make a suc¬ 
cess in the development of agents until he has 
a knowledge of the way in which to make 
that development and that can come only by 
experience. After you have secured your 
agent you should teach him the rules of the 
Company. You should teach him how to 
write an application. You should teach him 
how to make out his agent’s report. Teach 
him all of the rules which are important for 
him to know and then you should see that he 
obeys those rules. This is one of the neces¬ 
sary elements of success whether you be a 
General Agent or a State Manager. It is a 
wonderful thing to have that shrewdness 
which enables you to pick successful men. 
This is the quality which has built all busi¬ 
nesses, but it is almost as important a quality 
to be able to compel the man selected to obey 
the rules and co-operate and make a success. 

60 


REAPING WHAT YOU SOW 

The successful Manager today makes 
everyone of his salesmen feel that the success 
of his whole agency depends upon each par¬ 
ticular man doing the job assigned to him. 
This can be done, too, by a correct understand¬ 
ing of your agents, a correct understanding of 
their conditions and of their natures. You 
cannot drive men today. A generation ago 
the poor house over the hill was the great bug¬ 
bear for every salesman, but he does not 
worry about that today. He cannot be driven 
an inch. The modern man can be led—can 
be led up the hill of success, up to the top by 
the popular sales manager who endears his 
men to him by honest, square dealing and by 
the characteristics which make them have an 
interest in their work and an ambition for 
success. 

You remember the story that was told of 
Napoleon as an example of his wonderful 
ability to make men co-operate with him for 
success. A poor soldier who had been on duty 
for days had fallen asleep and his rifle had 
fallen out of his hand. In military rules this 
was inexcusable and only to be dealt with by 
court martial. Napoleon came along just at 
that time and picked up his musket and 
handed it to him and said to him: ‘Triend, 
here is your musket. You have fought hard 
61 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

and marched long and your exhaustion is ex¬ 
cusable. But a moment’s hesitation might at 
present ruin the whole army. You will be 
more careful next time.” Incidents like that 
endeared Napoleon to his men and his soldiers 
came to regard him with a veneration that 
older commanders were not able to instill into 
their men. When it came to handling men 
Napoleon was the greatest organizer that the 
world has ever seen. His men would die for 
him. He believed in organization. He ce¬ 
mented his organization together by his play 
upon human emotions and this coupled with 
the fact that he recognized no impossibility 
was what carried him so far in his great cam¬ 
paigns. If men can be made firmly to believe 
that they are capable of doing things, they 
usually do it. See that the early instruction 
which you give to your agents insures them 
obeying the rules of the Company. This will 
go a long way toward their development. 

CORRESPONDENCE 

Another development that you should 
make in your sub-agents is to impress upon 
them the importance of promptly taking care 
of their correspondence, no matter whether 
that correspondence be between yourself and 
the agent, or between the agent and the 
policyholders, or between the agent and the 
62 


REAPING WHAT YOU SOW 

Company. So far as the Company is con¬ 
cerned almost all of its business is done by 
correspondence. A record must be made at 
the Home Office. These records are perma¬ 
nent. These records must necessarily be in 
writing. The application which the risk 
makes for a policy constitutes the first act; 
the examination of the doctor is the second; 
the report of the agent is the third; the action 
of the Medical Department is the fourth; the 
transmission of the policy to the agency is the 
fifth; and any further correspondence or any 
that pertains to any of these acts which estab¬ 
lish this record for the Home Office is impor¬ 
tant. It is very important and every agent 
ought to realize the necessity of prompt atten¬ 
tion to all of his correspondence. He ought 
to take a pride in making that correspondence 
presentable. 

Everything relative to an application that 
comes to the Home Office of a Life Insurance 
Company makes a part of that record that 
may be reviewed several years from that time. 
So far as the Home Office is concerned every 
bit of correspondence has to be attended to 
promptly. We are delighted to receive letters 
which conform to the rules. We like to re¬ 
ceive a letter which is only upon one subject 
and deals with that subject thoroughly and 
63 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

fully, yet concisely, but we do dread to get 
those long winded letters which have a half- 
dozen different subjects handled in them, 
which have to be handled by first one Depart¬ 
ment and then another until it gets through 
the office. We know all the time that the 
agent who wrote that letter is wondering why 
he does not receive a reply to a certain part 
of his letter and we cannot help it because a 
certain part is handled by one Department 
and another part by another. Everybody 
hates to receive an attempted sarcastic letter. 
Usually all the funny part of it is dead long 
before the letter is opened at its destination 
and there only remains the sting which hurts 
and keeps on hurting deeper and deeper. I 
would like to say that the man who attempts 
to write a sarcastic letter is a—well, he uses 
poor judgment to say the least. The funny 
letter is almost as bad. A little bit of instruc¬ 
tion on the part of the Manager and General 
Agent to his sub-agents would obviate a great 
deal of this kind of correspondence with the 
Home Office. Of course, I am assuming now 
that the Manager has already made himself 
proficient in these things. I am assuming 
that he would not attempt to handle the Man¬ 
agership of a state agency or a general agency 
64 


REAPING WHAT YOU SOW 

without giving the kind of attention to his 
correspondence that would make the business 
right with the Home Office. I am speaking 
more particularly of his education of the sub¬ 
agents so that they will get further and be 
more successful in their agency. 

STIMULATING THE AGENT 

Then the General Agent should never fail 
to stimulate the local agent. Not only keep 
closely in touch with him so that you will 
know everything that is going on, but take 
occasion to stimulate him in every possible 
way to make him a better man, more full of 
energy and enthusiasm and better able to 
make for you a big success in the business. 
If you are to have a successful business career 
you must have some one great interest in¬ 
spired by the idea of financial success, some 
ruling passion that shall hold sway. The 
thing for the Manager to do is to find out what 
is the local agent’s object, find out what rules 
him, what leads him on, what is his idea of 
success, what he is trying to do. Some men 
are trying to build a home and pay for it. 
Some men are trying to accumulate a certain 
amount of money. Some men have some ob¬ 
ject and some have not. If the Manager 
knows the goal of each one of his agents he 
knows then how to deal with each one and he 


65 


A VISION OF LIFE INSIIRANCE 

can keep him always stimulated so that he 
will be successful. 

Enthusiasm will make success every time, 
provided that enthusiasm is earnest. If the 
agent is earnest in his great desire to make 
good for a certain reason and he has the enthu¬ 
siasm, then there will be no question about his 
success. A letter every now and then from the 
Manager will help to stimulate the man won¬ 
derfully. A visit when business is coming 
slow is like the hand-clasp of a friend in a far 
country. It puts new life into the agent. It 
makes him realize that he is not out in his 
territory alone and forgotten but that there 
is a “we’’ in the agency and that “we” must 
make good. Sometimes when the agent is out 
in some locality fighting his battles alone, he 
gets pretty lonesome. He gets to that point 
where he does not know his Manager so well; 
he forms his opinions from correspondence 
and from ideals and maybe those ideals have 
not the correct basis. Maybe the correspond¬ 
ence when placed in type has grown cold. It 
does not inspire him, it does not lead him on. 
It does not keep him working at top speed. 
The Manager should always remember that it 
is his duty to keep his sub-agent working at 
top speed. 


66 


REAPING WHAT YOU SOW 


In this connection it is worth while to 
quote from the ‘‘House Organ'’ of the Palm 
Olive Company. It is good: 

I know just how it goes, fellows: You’re about 
a thousand miles from the Home Office, in the tough¬ 
est territory a white man ever had to make. The 
day before you reached your last town all of the 
dealers got together and signed in blood not to buy 
another dollar’s worth of soap or toilet articles for 
a million years and ten days extra. 

It’s eight a. m. and raining—or maybe snowing 
(preferably both). You have about as much pep 
as a dead doornail. And you couldn’t even find Am¬ 
bition in the dictionary. Being in a likely mood, you 
start out on a little adventure in Pessimism, and 
wind up by asking yourself if the game is really 
worth while. ‘‘Oh, what’s the use?” you ask. 
“These hard licks I’m putting in don’t get me any 
place. Nobody’s watching me.” 

But you’re wrong—dead wrong. Somebody IS 
watching your record—half a dozen. Somebodies 
to be more exact. Your District Manager never 
lets a day go by without knowing just how you are 

measuring up. And out here at Milwaukee-. 

Well, if you were to drop in at the Home Office some 
morning you’d see for yourself. Going over Daily 
Reports is a part of the regular program here, 
half-a-dozen days in the week. The high-up execu¬ 
tives at Milwaukee are watching YOU. And don’t 
you forget it. 

The Palmolive Company employs us to SELL 
Goods. The more we sell, the more we are worth 

67 



A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 


to the firm—and the more money WE are going to 
make. An extra sale scrouged into each day will 
mean an increase in salary, just as sure as you are 
born. 

If you doubt that the work of each salesman is 
being watched, just stop and consider the positions 
that this organization has filled from the ranks. 
Where do State Managers come from? And Dis¬ 
trict Managers? When there^s a big job to be filled 
at Milwaukee, who gets it—a Palmoliver or an out¬ 
sider? 

The Palmolive organization needs more big men 
—super salesmen. We can’t get enough of them. 
YOU are being watched. 

Clip out this article and keep it. Read it over 
again every time you get that “WhaPs the use?” 
feeling. It will do you a lot of good. 

The Manager should at all times keep his 
mind freshened up. Keep absolutely up-to- 
date on all phases of his business. When he 
has learned something that is a little more 
up-to-date than what he has been using; 
something that is of real value in selling, he 
should impart that knowledge to his sub¬ 
agents just as quickly as possible. A little bit 
of a favor of this kind to a local agent makes 
him know that you have an interest in him; 
that you are taking an interest in him just as 
you are in yourself. If you know of a par¬ 
ticularly good way of selling an income policy, 
impart that knowledge to your sub-agent. If 
68 


REAPING WHAT YOU SOW 

you know a good human interest story, do not 
fail to tell it to him. Let him have the use of 
it just the same as yourself. Anything of this 
kind that you can impart to your agent is just 
like so much money invested in him. It will 
bring back good interest. That is not all that 
it does. The principal thing that it accom¬ 
plishes is that it keeps his mind freshened up. 
Teach him to read what is good in life insur¬ 
ance. If you get ahold of something that is 
of particularly good interest to you whether 
it be a good book on salesmanship or life in¬ 
surance or a clipping from a newspaper, pass 
it along to him, pass it along to the local agents 
and let it do as much good to them as it has 
done for you. That is the way to spread the 
education that will keep your agents stimu¬ 
lated and make greater successes for your 
agency. It will make co-operation. It will 
make your agency stand out ahead of all the 
others. 

Another thing that you want to teach your 
sub-agents is to be good observers. This ref¬ 
erence to these little things which are almost 
elementary in our business may seem unneces¬ 
sary and yet we find seventy-five per cent of 
our agents who pay no attention to the ele¬ 
mentary things that would help them make 
successes. If we could get our agents all to 
69 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

use their sense of observation and then just 
use their heads a little bit, we would increase 
our sales fifty per cent. There is that class of 
agents who go to a prospect and talk with 
him and maybe there is something that is out¬ 
standing that would give them a cue to make 
a sale and yet the agent never notices it. 
There is a certain elementary principle of 
salesmanship that every agent should know. 
He should learn to observe his prospect and 
be able to tell what is impressing him. There 
are many little signs about a man in his office 
that tips him off to the wide-awake salesman. 
When the prospect talks, the wide-awake 
salesman will notice the things that stick in 
his memory. These will give him a cue to 
his course of argument. You know there is 
some certain sense that appeals to every per¬ 
son and that sense is developed to a greater 
degree than his other senses. Usually the 
sense of sight is placed at the top. That is 
the reason why it is important that the sales¬ 
man should keep his appearance good. The 
Manager should teach his local agents to keep 
their appearance presentable. No person 
likes to deal with a slovenly looking agent. 
No person likes to sit down and talk over the 
creation of a ten thousand dollar estate with 
a man who has on a dirty collar and who has 
70 


REAPING WHAT YOU SOW 

his clothes unkept, who does not care any¬ 
thing about his appearance, which is directly 
opposite to the confidence a ten thousand dol¬ 
lar estate should inspire. What kind of an 
impression does that make on you? On nine- 
tenths of us it makes a very poor impression. 

Do you know that the poor boy Huyler, 
who was selling molasses candy on the street, 
became the rich successful Huyler because he 
knew the secret of attractive suggestion? He 
knew that candies put up in attractive pack¬ 
ages would sell; he knew when a young man 
bought candy he would pay for appearance. 
And so today we pay as much for the box the 
candy is in as for the candy itself. 

Usually if you talk to a man and especially 
about life insurance, you can tell whether or 
not he has a lot of sentiment in his make-up. 
If he does, then you are missing the big chance 
if you do not respond with sentiment and 
make your canvass along human interest lines. 
That is what will sell to that man. And if 
there be no sentiment and he is one who is 
known as a hard hearted business man, take 
the course that suits his nature and make your 
canvass accordingly. Do just like the man 
does who represents the building interests and 
is selling sand-paper. His greatest asset is 
carrying his sample piece of sand-paper and 
71 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

having the customer look closely at it to see 
the sharp edges of the little grains of sand. 
Then he likes to show what a fine surface it 
makes when a board is rubbed down with his 
sand-paper. In using that little tact the 
salesman is making the man use his sense of 
sight and at the same time is making him 
realize that he is selling him something of 
value because he can see it. The point that 
I want to impress upon our managers is that 
you can greatly improve your agencies by 
taking the pains to closely educate your sub¬ 
agents in these little things that help to make 
business more satisfactory. Maybe just one 
little piece of education along some line of 
this kind will give your men so much enthu¬ 
siasm that they will get started and make a 
great success. Many an agent has built him¬ 
self up to a managership on just this kind of 
enthusiasm, created in just this way, and it 
is well worth your while to give attention to 
all these features in starting your agencies. 

When a new agent is secured, he should be 
given an idea of what life insurance really 
means, of its function in saving widows from 
drab misery, in feeding and clothing and edu¬ 
cating little children, in making old age happy 
and comfortable. If this idea is rightly pre¬ 
sented it will make a right-minded new agent 
72 


REAPING WHAT YOU SOW 

want to do two things—first, to get to work 
with the shortest delay possible and, second, 
while he works, to learn all he can about life 
insurance, so that he will daily become more 
expert in the business. 

One of the most amusing of the great 
Hogarth^s pictures is purposely drawn out of 
perspective, for instance, a woman with a 
candle is lighting from a window the pipe of 
a man on a hilltop a mile away. When a new 
agent is given at the start a whole book full 
of theoretical information about life insur¬ 
ance, the effect of it is that this information 
arranges itself in his mind without any sense 
of perspective whatsoever. His business is to 
sell policies. To do so he must create desire 
and get action. But the greater part of the 
theoretical information which is sometimes 
erroneously given him at the start has little 
to do with creating desire. He naturally sup¬ 
poses it has. It is an absence of perspective 
as absurd as anything in Hogarth's picture. 

The first instruction given to an agent 
should make him eager to go out and per¬ 
suade men to protect their wives and chil¬ 
dren. In other words, it would fill him with 
enthusiasm of the right sort, a sense that he 
could have no nobler calling in the world 
than to secure protection for widows and or- 
73 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

phans, a feeling that would brook no delay, 
but insisted upon immediate action. 

Such an agent must necessarily be eager 
to become efficient. He realizes from the start 
that the more he knows about life insurance 
the more efficient he will become. He is am¬ 
bitious to succeed in his chosen calling, and 
he realizes that the more he can learn the 
more successful he will become. Thus begins 
an education which never ceases, and an edu¬ 
cation of the maximum value because each 
component part of it is tested as it is learned. 
There is no lack of perspective. There is no 
absurdity. Each theory is constantly tested 
by experience. This is the way in which ex¬ 
perts are made. 

INITIATIVE 

The great work of life is to raise the 
value of everything that passes through our 
hands. To pass anything on at the same value 
is not improving our opportunity. It is to get 
into a rut and do things by a rule until the 
institution has become a back number because 
of its old fogy and out-of-date methods. Initi¬ 
ative many times saves the day. New blood 
keeps the business alive. The world always 
makes room for the man with initiative, who 
has courage and boldness enough to carry out 
74 


REAPING WHAT YOU SOW 

a thing, the man who can grasp a new situa¬ 
tion or meet an emergency without being 
dazed by it. The independent self-reliant 
man who never seeks what others have done 
is a similar instance. He maps out his own 
course independently, devises new methods, 
organizes new ways of doing things, is bigger 
than precedent, can always step out of the 
crowd and act, and is in demand everywhere. 

One of the principal things that a Man¬ 
ager should do is to teach his sub-agents to 
have initiative. Every person has a certain 
amount of it. Sometimes it is lamentable 
that it is so very small but whatever it is can 
be developed to advantage. A Manager 
should arouse the spirit of initiative in every 
one of his men and make it active. Make 
them have the desire to go ahead and do 
things by themselves. Initiative is doing 
things without being told. It is what raises 
every personas salary. Every general agent 
can very materially increase the value of 
every one of his men by teaching them to go 
ahead for themselves. First, he should in¬ 
struct them in the rules of the Company. 
Then have them see their business in the per¬ 
spective and impress upon them the necessity 
of devising ways and means of making a suc¬ 
cess in their chosen profession. The man who 
75 


A VISION OF LIFE INSUEANCE 

lacks initiative is always in the same kind of 
a useless position as an automobile without a 
motor. He can make a splendid appearance 
but he cannot move unless somebody pushes 
or pulls him. Someone has said that if he had 
at his command all the money in the world 
the first great thing he would do would be to 
endow in every college a chair of initiative. 
He would teach the young man and young 
woman, coming out of college, initiative and 
what it means to them in their future busi¬ 
ness. He is not far wrong because in each 
instance of a great success we can go back 
through his life and find that initiative is the 
thing that has put him forward. If more 
persons realized this a greater number of 
them would be successful. 

We have all met that agent who tells us 
of the wonderful opportunity there is in his 
territory, tells us all about the conditions, tells 
us what should be done in the insurance line, 
and he is correct in his theory, tells us that 
next week or next month he is going to pro¬ 
duce a wonderful volume of business, yet 
nothing ever comes and the next time we see 
him we have the same story over and over 
again. That is lack of initiative. He is one 
of that class of men who is not a ‘‘go-getter.’’ 
He never goes at all. That is the kind of a 
76 


REAPING WHAT YOU SOW 

man that the general agent ought to develop 
so that he -will realize his duty to do things 
for himself or he ought to get rid of him. The 
man who doe's” not do anything but plan and 
theorize is of no value to an agency. He is 
the weak link in the chain of the agency which 
makes it dangerous all the time to make plans. 
The weak link should be mended or replaced. 
It is a very sorry sight to see an able-bodied 
man with all his faculties, having great pos¬ 
sibilities, following somebody else all through 
life, always seeking the advice of others and 
never daring to venture his own judgment. 
This man is to be pitied and just as much pity 
is due to the Manager or Company who keeps 
and fosters a man of this kind. It is no favor 
to him to encourage him in his failure and it 
usually is a great detriment to anybody who 
hangs him around his neck and expects to 
carry him through life. 

It is not hard to pick the successful man 
out of a crowd of people. It is not hard in 
any particular line of business to pick out the 
successful agencies. It is not difficult in our 
business to count those Managers and General 
Agents who are at all times successful in their 
chosen profession. There is no high road to 
success. There is no well beaten path to for¬ 
tune. There is no set course that any person 
77 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

can take which will lead them directly to their 
goal in any line of business. But we do know 
certain things which are as necessary to the 
Manager or General Agent as food and cloth¬ 
ing and air, that he may be a success. That 
Manager or General Agent who does not rec¬ 
ognize and take full cognizance of those facts 
is going to fall short of his success. 

A Manager or General Agent who goes 
into the life insurance business, whether he 
be a young man full of vigor and energy, or 
whether he be past the meridian of life, has 
three duties that he must necessarily perform 
before he can claim success. One of those 
duties is to correctly inform himself upon the 
life insurance business; the second duty is to 
make of himself a personal producer; the 
third duty is to select other salesmen to help 
him build his agency and organize them into 
successes. If he leaves out any one of these 
three duties he cannot be more than two- 
thirds of a success. If he leaves out the first 
one of them he will be a total failure no mat¬ 
ter what else he accomplishes. If he does not 
make of himself a personal producer he will 
not know the conditions in the field; he will 
not know how properly to deal with an agent; 
he will fall more than one-third short of what 
he is doing in his life work. But if he does 
78 


REAPING WHAT YOU SOW 

make of himself a well rounded, well devel¬ 
oped man with full and accurate knowledge 
of the life insurance business, and with a gen¬ 
eral knowledge of salesmanship and business 
conditions of the country, he will have the 
foundation that will help him to develop all 
the talents he has. Then if he uses care in 
the selection of his salesmen; if he know the 
value of the territory which he has to develop; 
if he sets the proper kind of a sales task for 
himself and for his agents and for his entire 
agency; and if he keeps all the members of his 
agency stimulated at all times, there need be 
little worry about his success or the success 
of his agency. 

The world will make way for any man 
who knows his goal. The secret of achieve¬ 
ment is in the focusing of one’s powers, in the 
bringing the whole man to the day’s work, to 
his life’s purpose. If we learn to concentrate 
ourselves upon every subject that we have at 
hand, upon everything that we intend to do, 
we will find few really hard tasks. If we 
have a definite goal and concentrate upon that 
goal our success is assured. It is the great 
purpose which gives meaning to life. We see 
fruit growers cutting off one-half of the 
branches of a tree in order to make it concen¬ 
trate and bear a greater fruit value. We see 
79 


A VISION OF LIFE INSUBANCE 

gardeners pruning off the vines until it looks 
as though they would be entirely destroyed, 
but it produces concentration to the point of 
the very highest producing power. What is 
true of nature in this regard is just as true 
of the general agency. That Manager or Gen¬ 
eral Agent who realizes these conditions and 
who knows his goal, will always be a success. 
Keep your interests alive by trying to dis¬ 
cover new things in old surroundings, new 
aspects to every-day tasks. The world was 
old when Columbus discovered America. You 
too may make new discoveries in every de¬ 
partment of your work and always bear in 
mind that you are putting forth this added 
effort for the sole purpose of finding a fresh 
center of interest as a means of greater con¬ 
centration or attention on your work. This 
is the secret of individual efficiency and of 
your own personal success. 

We all know that success in any under¬ 
taking is a long hard road and it is the man 
of endurance who makes the journey. Suc¬ 
cess in any undertaking is never gained until 
it has many times been picked up for dead on 
life’s battlefield. Every grey hair in the head 
of age, represents a sigh. Every law on our 
statute books represents midnight candles 
burned low. Every painting drawn upon 
80 


REAPING WHAT YOU SOW 


canvass is an intimation of the toil and heart 
throbs of the artist, and every stream that 
goes singing to the sea tells a story of the 
rocks over which it passed. Every Manager 
and every General Agent will have his grey 
hairs, will pass over his share of the rocks 
but if he has his set goal and is true to the 
course, success will crown his every effort. 


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1 , 


CONSTRUCTIVE WORK OF LIFE 
INSURANCE 




CHAPTER II 

Constructive Work of Life Insurance 

Centuries ago a King in Egypt had a 
great desire to build permanent burial places 
for himself and for his family and the archi¬ 
tects of that time designed the pyramids of 
Egypt. For the many centuries since that 
time these pyramids have stood the test of 
age and are still standing today. The con¬ 
struction of these wonderful monuments is 
one of the mysteries. The stone out of which 
they were constructed had to be conveyed more 
than five hundred miles and some of these 
stones weighed more than thirty tons. Mind 
you this was in the dark ages as compared 
with the progress of today. More than one 
hundred thousand slaves worked on the con¬ 
struction of this pyramid. It was about four 
hundred feet square and four hundred and 
seventy-six feet high. These one hundred 
thousand slaves rolled, carried and worked 
these stones to their final resting place in the 
great monument and when they had done with 
their work left it as a finished structure. One 
hundred thousand human beings toiled for 
years and years to build this great pyramid. 

85 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

Shortly after that time someone invented ap¬ 
pliances for lifting and moving heavy bodies 
and things progressed until the present time. 
Great structures are erected today, but it does 
not take the energy and strength and the very 
life of a hundred thousand human beings to 
erect a structure, nor does it take ages to do 
so. The inventions and appliances we have 
today enable the handling of all kinds of ma¬ 
terial enormously heavy and large and facili¬ 
tate the speedy construction of large build¬ 
ings. This is the natural progress of the 
times. 

Today if we want a large building erected 
we go to a contractor who is educated in his 
work, who knows what to do and how to do 
it, who knows the theory of building and of 
engineering, who has studied the experience 
of others back to the time of the building of 
pyramids, who has profited by their experi¬ 
ence and their history and knows how to work 
economically as well as speedily. In doing so 
we recognize the education of the builder. 
We recognize it as necessary in our progress 
today. We know that we would not go back 
to the old methods of building. We would 
have neither the time nor the money to do so. 

In this practice we recognize the absolute 
necessity of education in the different lines 
86 


CONSTRUCTIVE WORK OF LIFE INSURANCE 

as well as the professions. Let us inquire of 
ourselves who in this country have the great 
reputations as lawyers. Root, Taft, and many 
other men who have made their records, would 
be the ones named. Each one of them we 
would find, if we studied his history, has come 
up to his present position because he has edu¬ 
cated himself. Sometimes it has been an edu¬ 
cation gained in the Universities. Other 
times it has been gained by applying himself 
persistently in a systematic way. Lincoln as 
a lawyer was an evidence of this. We have 
many other examples of the same kind of edu¬ 
cation, but it was necessary that they have 
the education no matter how it came. If we 
inquire who are the great doctors in this 
country today, we would immediately name 
the Mayos and we would not forget the great 
Murphy and Bevin among the recent ones, 
men who have reputations which will stand 
the test because they are educated and be¬ 
cause they are experienced. We know that Mr. 
Hillis is a great minister, that Talmadge was 
a great minister, and that Ireland was a great 
minister, and all of them were educated. We 
could go through all of the other businesses 
and all of the other professions with like ex¬ 
amples. The fact is that it takes education 
plus experience to make success. Education 
87 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

must be gained before success can be had to 
any great extent. I do not mean to say that 
a man must have a technical education unless 
it be a technical profession, but I do mean to 
say that he must know his business, no mat¬ 
ter what that business is. If he be but a 
horse trainer he must know his business. He 
could not be a success as a horse trainer unless 
he knew horses and just the sight of a horse 
would not be sufficient education for him, 
either. 

The life insurance agent is no exception 
to the rule that an education is required. It 
is not necessary that he have a University or 
College education. It is not necessary that he 
be educated in mathematics and the lan¬ 
guages, but it is necessary that he gain 
knowledge of the world and of the businesses 
and that he be able to reason and understand 
business. It is necessary that the life insur¬ 
ance man do this. It is just a question how 
soon he does it. He cannot have success until 
he has done this. If he takes the modern 
methods of educating himself just like he 
wants his son to do when he sends him to 
school, then he is going to obtain this knowl¬ 
edge quickly so that he can apply it and turn 
it into returns for himself. If he does not do 
this, then he must gain his knowledge by ex- 
88 


CONSTRUCTIVE WORK OF LIFE INSURANCE 

perience and knowledge gained in this way 
is not only very costly in time and money and 
in personal feelings, but it delays success un¬ 
til it may be too late. Knowledge gained by 
experience must necessarily come very slowly. 
A little bit of experience today and a little bit 
tomorrow all added together makes an experi¬ 
enced man, but the modern contractor today 
fits himself as a builder by studying the ex¬ 
perience of others. That’s what the life in¬ 
surance man should do to save time. Then 
he can go into his profession when he yet has 
the energy of his manhood sufficient to make 
of himself a big success. Many great men in 
this country, and I may say the most of them, 
are self-made men and we all admire the self- 
made man. But there is not one of them of 
whom we would be able to say he did not have 
an education. Maybe he did not have a tech¬ 
nical education but he had the common sense 
and the good judgment to make of himself a 
learned man. 

Did you ever talk with a person from the 
mountains of Virginia or Tennessee and be 
amazed at the vocabulary at his command, a 
man who probably never saw the inside of a 
University, who possibly never has been away 
but for a few miles from his own home neigh¬ 
borhood and yet surprises you in his talk and 
89 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

in his knowledge. If you made any inquiry 
you found out that in his years in the com¬ 
mon schools there was one thing that was re¬ 
quired more than any other and that was the 
study of the spelling book. He learned words 
and their meaning and in that way he was an 
educated man. 

The life insurance agent has at his com¬ 
mand today the experience of others of his 
profession who can give to him an education 
that will put him ahead farther and faster 
than most any other kind of a profession. He 
can then gain his experience and make appli¬ 
cation of the experience of others very read¬ 
ily. If you have read “Ben Hur” you immedi¬ 
ately conclude that if he had never pulled on 
the oars as a galley slave he would never have 
been able to win the chariot race. In other 
words, he was fit for the emergency which 
presented itself. A general knowledge of your 
business is absolutely necessary for your 
good progress in the business. A storing up 
of the knowledge against the time when you 
will need to use it is what makes of you a man 
out of the ordinary in your profession. It 
cannot all be gained in a little while but it 
must come by persistent study and application 
just like an education in any other business 
must come. We are too apt in the sales end 
90 


CONSTRUCTIVE WORK OF LIFE INSURANCE 

of the life insurance business to forget our 
own training. We are too apt to go out and 
get an application that is sufficient to keep 
the wolf from the door and be too well satis¬ 
fied with ourselves and forget that there will 
be times when we will need education and de¬ 
veloped ability to meet an emergency to get 
the same kind of an application. 

Sooner or later as you go along in your 
profession you will learn that Providence 
makes no mistake in her bookkeeping. Very 
often we are compelled to do a thing by grim 
necessity, but every one of these honest efforts 
of ours are laid up at compound interest in 
the bank account of strength. Sooner or later 
there comes a time when we need every ounce 
of this strength. Sooner or later the chariot 
race is on, when we win the victory, when we 
strike the decisive blow, when we stand while 
all others around us fall, and then those vic¬ 
tories are won by the strength that we have 
stored up in these experiences, even though 
they be the experiences of necessity. Our 
world is not very considerate of the individ¬ 
ual. In the final analysis it is the survival of 
the fittest. Maybe for a little while you can 
get by on bluff, or main strength and awk¬ 
wardness, but you cannot carry clear through 
without the ability that makes you more than 
91 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

an average man. Our world has a habit of 
paying Socrates with a cup of poison and 
Christ with the cross, but the man with the 
knowledge of business gets farther and higher 
than that man who goes at it haphazard. 

One time I heard a blind preacher, who 
was to me a remarkable speaker. He had no 
education save what he had gained as a blind 
boy from his youth, yet he had wonderful rea¬ 
soning power, wonderful command of the 
language and was a very forceful speaker. I 
always remember a climax in one of his talks. 
He said: “Some people wonder why they do 
not receive any letters. I can tell you why 
they don’t receive letters. Because they never 
write any.” Doesn’t that express very forci¬ 
bly one of the great principles of life that you 
get out of life just exactly what you put into 
it? If you write no letters, you will receive 
no letters. If you do not put forth effort, 
ability and strength into the world, nothing 
of any consequence will come back to you. 
The man who buried his talents found that 
they did not increase, but others took the same 
talents and increased them fourfold. The re¬ 
sults of the education of the life insurance 
agent compares very favorably with the in¬ 
crease of the five talents. 


92 


CONSTRUCTIVE WORK OF LIFE INSURANCE 

How is the life insurance man to get his 
education? There are two ways. The old¬ 
est University since time began is the Uni¬ 
versity of Hard Knocks. This old University 
has graduated many men and women of whom 
the world is very proud, but we do not know 
the smallest part of the suffering and heart 
aches and loss of energy of those who finally 
received their diplomas as successes in the 
University, nor can we count those who fell 
by the wayside in an honest effort because of 
the lack of strength and endurance and time 
to become successful graduates from this Uni¬ 
versity. There can be no shirking in this 
University. There is no leeway given in the 
final examination. There is no credit for lost 
time or for sickness. The rules are ironclad 
and it is success or failure. 

The life insurance man can start out and 
make his canvasses and gain his experience by 
his efforts in the field and if he has the 
strength and the endurance and the ability he 
will become a life insurance man of reputa¬ 
tion, but how much sooner can he avail him¬ 
self of all of the knowledge that he gains by 
experience, by study, by applying himself, by 
studying the experience of others. There is 
no patent by which we can do away with 
study. There is no method or rules of doing 
93 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 


business which will do away with common 
sense and judgment. We cannot equip our¬ 
selves with any appliance that will do away 
with work. It takes just the same kind of 
perseverance today as it ever did. It takes 
the same kind of hard work and ability and 
the same hours of work, but the perseverance 
brings better results and the long hours of 
work bring bigger pay. It takes the same 
kind of care, but carefulness counts for a very 
great deal in business. It takes the same 
kind of loyalty that it ever did take to make 
success, but loyalty earns large compound in¬ 
terest. It takes the same kind of faith in the 
profession of life insurance as it ever did and 
yet that faith helps make the occupation bet¬ 
ter and brings bigger and better results. You 
may say that many of our great men were 
ignorant and unlearned, but you can’t accuse 
them of being without enthusiasm. Enthu¬ 
siasm and loyalty were the things that brought 
them home to success. You don’t find a suc¬ 
cessful man today who is not an enthusiastic 
man in his business, so we say to you that the 
life insurance man should not depend alone 
on the old University of Hard Knocks for 
his education, but he should round out that 
education by the study of the experience of 
others. 


94 


CONSTRUCTIVE WORK OF LIFE INSURANCE 

WHY ARE PEOPLE PENNILESS AT SIXTY? 

Have you ever asked yourself why so many 
men are penniless at age sixty? Have you 
ever tried to reason out the cause for the stat¬ 
istics that at age of sixty-five, fifty-three per 
cent of all people are dependent upon some¬ 
one for support? If you have tried to study 
this out you have come to the conclusion that 
it was the lack of systematic work in the 
early years of a person’s life which made him 
dependent when his physical strength began 
to decline. You found that they possibly 
treated things in a happy-go-lucky way, that 
instead of being systematic long enough for 
system to become fixed in them as a habit they 
were given to passing things along—come 
easy, go easy. They did not conserve their 
energy. They did not form a habit of sav¬ 
ing. They did not become enthusiastic in 
their position. The man who loves his job 
and who is enthusiastic over it cannot help 
but require system sufficient to make of him¬ 
self a success, but if he does not do this he 
will not acquire the education and training 
about his business which will make him above 
the average among his fellow-men. 

If you as life insurance men in working 
about the country could make people see 
clearly the last fifteen years of their lives, it 
95 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 


would reduce this percentage of dependent 
people at age sixty-five very materially. If 
you could sell to your prospect the last fifteen 
years of his life you would be doing humanity 
one of the greatest favors that could be done 
and you would be prolonging the mortality 
table by so doing. The man who sees the last 
fifteen years of his life must of necessity make 
provision against that time. He cannot have 
a vision of it without doing so. The passing 
thought of it is not what I mean. I mean a 
vision, a detailed vision of the last fifteen 
years of a human life. See misery and want 
and despair on one hand and comfort and 
pleasure and peace of mind on the other. We 
all know that money is not all there is in this 
life, but that satisfaction of mind counts for 
more than anything else. Satisfaction of 
mind cannot be obtained by a person sixty- 
five years of age without means of support 
and without the strength to work. Money 
will not buy health or happiness, but it is a 
universal passport to every place in the world 
except Heaven, and the provisions for the last 
fifteen years of life can best be made by the 
life insurance man and to him is due the credit 
and honor of a great accomplishment as he 
makes people have the vision of their last 
days. 


96 


CONSTRUCTIVE WORK OF LIFE INSURANCE 


THE LAZY MAN 

It is not necessary for us to talk about the 
lazy man today. He eliminates himself and 
there is nothing to be said about him. We 
may sometimes try to constitute ourselves his 
guardian and try to show him the error of his 
ways and get him to work and be systematic 
and successful. We may try to show him that 
he actually has the ability to succeed, but we 
soon give it up as a bad job. We realize that 
it is not fair to ourselves and to our family 
to waste our time with some person who has 
no interest in himself. 

The life insurance man cannot get an edu¬ 
cation by the adoption of the lazy rules of life. 
Neither can a man succeed in any other kind 
of business without the observance of rules 
that require him to do business in a business¬ 
like way. A few hours today and a few 
hours tomorrow will not make success. A 
little bit of application today and more 
tomorrow and none the next day is just that 
kind of laziness which wears out the patience 
of everybody. The life insurance man who 
writes fifty thousand this month and nothing 
for the next three months until the pantry 
gets bare is the thorn in the flesh at the Home 
Office. No dependance can be placed in him. 
After awhile nothing is expected of him. A 
97 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

great deal more satisfaction comes from the 
record of the man who writes four thousand 
a month but is regular and steady in that 
production than from the man who goes out 
and produces fifty thousand of business today 
and you never hear from him for six months. 
We at the Home Office know that the man who 
works spasmodically has ability to do things 
in the business but has not the ambition to 
do it. We learn the habit of guessing that 
that man starts to work, if he works, about 
ten o’clock and quits about three. This is the 
kind of a man who would hold back the sun 
an hour every morning and have it gain two 
hours every afternoon if the Lord just gave 
him the same kind of discretionary powers 
that he gave Joshua. We have absolutely no 
use in the life insurance business for the lazy 
man. There is no place for him, there is no 
hope for him, and we have no contract for him. 

One of the greatest studies that the life 
insurance man must make and which must be 
continuous throughout his entire career is the 
study of human nature. This is one branch of 
the business which he never finishes. There 
are just as many different natures as there 
are individuals in the world and the few of 
them that we meet in our short lives give us 
just that much knowledge of it. The life in- 
98 


CONSTRUCTIVE WORK OF LIFE INSURANCE 

surance man must try to study and classify 
certain kinds of human nature and know 
what that kind of a temperament will do 
under certain kinds of circumstances. 

We learned as boys when we went to the 
circus that the animal trainer would do cer¬ 
tain things to make the animals perform cer¬ 
tain tricks which they had been educated to 
perform. If he had varied the situation these 
animals would not have performed for him. 
We did not think then that this trainer had 
given years and years to the study of the na¬ 
ture of these animals. He looked to us just 
like a big fine man with a silk hat who was 
giving to us an entertainment and so he was, 
but he was just practicing what he had studied 
for years and years and this principle is just 
as true with human beings. Placed into cer¬ 
tain situations a human being has a natural 
inclination to do a certain thing. If his mind 
is brought up to a certain situation it prompts 
him to act. Some of these situations can be 
set up naturally so that the man can see them 
actually, then he has a situation which forces 
him to act, but many times that situation has 
to be presented to him only in the mind’s eye. 
Looking ahead is what makes us prepare 
against the future. The agent in making 
the canvass must picture the situation and 
99 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

bring it up to him so he will see it forcibly 
enough to cause him to act. This is the study 
that the life insurance man must continue to 
make. 

Human nature is not much different in 
one class of people than in another. The 
learned man and the big business man and 
the man who digs in the ditch all get their 
reasoning power and their minds from the 
same source. Somebody said—“The Colonel’s 
lady and Judy O’Grady are sisters under the 
skin.” This illustrates the point very nicely. 
All that the digger in the ditch needs to make 
him on a level with the judge is to just bring 
him up to his situation, but his reasoning 
power and his source of reason is just exactly 
the same, and the situation which will cause 
each of them to act for the protection of their 
loved ones, for the provision against the last 
days of their own life, for their comfort and 
their pleasure and for the benefit of their fel¬ 
low human beings, is just exactly the same, 
and as the life insurance man gets better 
acquainted with human nature and is able to 
read it and understand it, just to that extent 
does he progress and make of himself a bigger 
man. It is probably the most important 
branch of the study of our profession. 


100 


CONSTRUCTIVE WORK OF LIFE INSURANCE 


LOVE YOUR WORK 

It seems useless for us to say that today 
a successful man must love his job. And he 
must love that job exclusively if he is going 
to be a big man. We may find ourselves as 
we go about through the world observing this 
business and that business and becoming in¬ 
fatuated with it and wishing that we could 
be in that particular business. It is very com¬ 
mendable in the person who does this, but we 
must also realize that we can serve just one 
master successfully, that if we try to take up 
more than one business our energy and our 
ability must be divided and therefore our suc¬ 
cess will be divided. Every one of us knows 
that type of man who has so many irons in 
the fire that he never has any time for any of 
them. If we watch that man and observe him 
down to the time when he ought to be suc¬ 
cessful we usually find him to be a below- 
average man, barely making a living and 
many times a total failure. I never think of 
this subject that I don’t think of the beauti¬ 
ful poem that Ella Wheeler Wilcox wrote, en¬ 
titled “My Ships.” It is a wonderful produc¬ 
tion : 


101 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 


MY SHIPS 

If all the ships I have at sea 
Should come a-sailing home to me, 

Ah, well, the harbor would not hold 
So many ships as there would be. 

If all my ships came home to me. 

If half my ships came home to me. 

And brought their precious freight to me. 
Ah, well, I should have wealth as great. 

As any king that sits in state. 

So rich the treasure there would be. 

In half my ships now out at sea. 

If but one ship I have at sea 
Should come a-sailing home to me. 

Ah, well, the storm-clouds then might frown. 
For if the others all went down. 

Still rich and glad and proud I'd be. 

If that one ship came home to me. 

If that one ship went down at sea. 

And all the others came to me. 

Weighed down with gems and wealth untold. 
With honor, riches, glory, gold— 

The poorest soul on earth I'd be. 

If that one ship came not to me. 

Oh skies be calm! Oh winds, blow free! 
Blow all my ships safe home to me; 

But if thou sendest some awreck. 

To nevermore come sailing back. 

Send any, all that skim the sea, 

But send my Love ship home to me. 


102 


CONSTRUCTIVE WORK OF LIFE INSURANCE 

The sentiment of this poem is splendid. It 
is a wonderful poem. It stirs us and makes 
us think. But we know so many persons who 
have so many ships at sea that they are con¬ 
tinually worrying about them. They have 
great elation when they think that if all of 
their ships should be successful and come sail¬ 
ing home to them, that they would be im¬ 
mensely rich and successful. And then their 
reasoning powers carry them on down that if 
only one-half of their ships come home, that 
the freight of just that many would make 
them happy, prosperous and successful, and 
then if only one, some particular one, should 
successfully weather the storm to the end, they 
would be successful and then the conclusion 
that if that one failed that life would be a 
failure. They are short-sighted in their rea¬ 
soning that it takes many lines to bring in a 
successful cargo of freight, that it takes many 
businesses transacted together to make suc¬ 
cess. They forget the fact that divided 
energy reduces the chance of success. They 
overlook the fact that in jumping from one 
thing to another that it is impossible for them 
to concentrate on any one thing to succeed. 

Do you play golf? Do you remember the 
days when you made the poorest scores of all 
and that they were the days when you did not 
103 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

concentrate on the game? You made no drive 
that was a credit to you because of lack of 
concentration. There are days in your busi¬ 
ness when the same thing is true and there 
must be with the person who has many busi¬ 
nesses a lack of concentration in all of them. 
Jim Hill was one of the men who concentrated 
and he built a railroad which is one of the 
greatest in the United States. He ran the 
rails and the track out into a wilderness and 
built an Empire, because he concentrated on 
his job. They said of Jim Hill that he was a 
hard task master, because he could not realize 
that the other fellow could not accomplish as 
much as himself. If he could do it he thought 
the other fellow could do it and his require¬ 
ments were very heavy and yet these require¬ 
ments made men, developed men, and made 
them successful. 

Do you concentrate in your canvass? I 
have heard some of our agents make canvasses 
which were disgraceful to the profession. 
They were not creditable because they just 
simply were a jumbled mass of nothing, a duty 
of the man to insure, giving him a few facts 
and a few figures and expecting that to lead 
his mind to some kind of a conclusion. There 
was no system and in fact no arguments which 
would lead to a conclusion at all. Concentra- 


104 


CONSTRUCTIVE WORK OF LIFE INSURANCE 

tion in your canvass means a systematic pres¬ 
entation of the facts which will lead a man 
up to a certain point of decision. If you store 
your mind full of facts and if you have those 
facts at your command and if you have posted 
yourself on the conditions of the person you 
are canvassing, there need be no fear of your 
concentrating to that point which you will 
lead the mind of your applicant, but if you 
do not concentrate, if you are not systematic, 
if you have not trained yourself so that you 
understand your business, then you cannot 
lead the mind as you should. You cannot 
lead the mind of your applicant with an un¬ 
organized canvass. A little canvass can be 
made without much knowledge, if you have 
nerve enough to call it a canvass. You can 
see the prospect who ought to be insured and 
tell him a few things and take up a little of 
his time and maybe get an application, but 
that is not following your profession. You 
are just taking orders for the ten-cent store. 
And the life insurance profession charges 
such a man with the crime of neglecting his 
fellow-men, neglecting to provide for the wel¬ 
fare of the men, women and children in his 
territory for whom he ought to be a guardian. 
This is an absolute fact if the life insurance 
business means what we claim that it means. 

105 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 


When you have educated yourself systematic¬ 
ally in the life insurance business, your vision 
of this business is so great and so strong with 
you that you do not fail to concentrate. You 
do not fail to radiate your enthusiasm which 
makes of you a magnetic person who cannot 
help but be successful. If you have educated 
yourself, if you have the proper ambitions, 
and if you have made yourself enthusiastic, 
you do not need to worry about your ships, 
because you will have only one and you will 
be in complete command and none of the ele¬ 
ments nor any of the human influences will 
affect you in the guidance of that ship. There 
will be only to be taken into consideration the 
decrees of the Divine Providence. 


106 


LIFE INSURANCE THE PROFESSION 
WHICH LEADS THEM ALL 






CHAPTER III 


“Life Insurance the Peopfession Which 
Leads Them All” 

The Life Insurance Profession is coming 
into its own. Towering today above all other 
sales professions, it stands a wonderful 
achievement of success due to the perseverence 
of patient men and the cleansing fire of criti¬ 
cism. The Life Insurance man can hold his 
head higher today than ever before. He owes 
apologies to no man or profession. If we 
would make comparisons the profession gladly 
furnishes the facts which in any mind estab¬ 
lishes its grandeur, honor and progressive¬ 
ness. It is one with Service as its object; 
service not only to self but to others and to 
humanity in general. 

Most businesses depend upon salesmen to 
market their wares. Some are salesmen be¬ 
hind the counter, some on the road, while yet 
others do business by mail. Salesmen all— 
and by them the house is known. The cus¬ 
tomers, be they for hardware, dry goods, or 
life insurance are not privileged to know the 
house and the individuals of the firm but the 


109 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

salesman is the one on whom they look as the 
firm. By him the reputation of the house is 
made. Many businesses have had unethical 
salesmen. Many crooks crept into the organi¬ 
zation. The man who could tell the smoothest 
story about his goods was at one time known 
as the lightning salesman. That individual 
has been in the life insurance business. Life 
insurance is the one profession which more 
than any other has realized the necessity of 
having creditable representatives in the sale 
of its policies. It is the one profession which 
has been cleansed as has no other. It was at 
the instance of the life insurance companies 
that the Standard Provisions Laws were 
passed practically writing the policies for 
each company. Why was this done? The 
greatest reason was to enable the profession 
to make its sales only on a plain business 
basis. The profession of life insurance had 
enough faith in itself and in its future to sub¬ 
ject itself to the test of fire. The result was 
as intended. It was elevated to a plane which 
is the top of sales professions today. If the 
profession was to be elevated it must be rid 
of the crooks and the liar. Life insurance 
took up this task as its own job and finished 
it with credit. The smooth individual, the 
one who misrepresented his policies, his com- 
110 


THE PROFESSION WHICH LEADS THEM ALL 

pany, and all other policies and companies, is 
today in some other line of work. At one time 
the business was thought to be the dumping 
ground for all failures but today it contains 
more real great successes than any other pro¬ 
fession. The reputable company today em¬ 
ploys no man until it knows who he is and 
what reputation he has both as a man and as 
a salesman. If poor in either respect he must 
pass along. 

Today under the banner of life insurance 
is gathered the select salesmen of the world, 
and they have their share of the honors as 
well as the profits of the company. We point 
with pride to their achievements. So well do 
they stand that it was they who planned the 
Soldiers’ and Sailors’ insurance scheme for 
our Government and it was these same men 
who placed the policies for the Government 
without a dollar of expense to it. This of it¬ 
self is honor enough for us for all time. But 
that is just a beginning. 

Many businesses of a semi-public charac¬ 
ter are always under suspicion as to the char¬ 
acter of their investments. Life insurance is 
more free from the criticism than any other 
business in the world. Companies do not in¬ 
vest in industrial or speculative securities of 
111 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 


any kind. It may be said that the policy¬ 
holders’ money of the American Life Insur¬ 
ance companies is backed by the very soil of 
our land. Investments are secured either by 
loans directly on the land or indirectly are 
they so secured. Therefore from this stand¬ 
point the profession is above reproach and is 
most creditable to all engaged in it. 

Our Government reports tell us that an¬ 
nually in the United States at least $100,000,- 
000.00 of money is taken from our people by 
frauds and wildcat schemes. These frauds 
are accomplished by smooth contracts in the 
hands of oily salesmen. Not one dollar of this 
fraud money can be laid at the door of the 
life insurance profession. Not a dollar of this 
money was secured by a life insurance sales¬ 
man. How much comfort is there in the 
thought that we are engaged in a profession 
in which no person is defrauded or injured 
and in which no citizen can lose a dollar of his 
money invested. The law so safeguards the 
policyholder that he must on any policy he 
purchases from a legal reserve company have 
value received and he must receive it at all 
hazards. Other businesses may have their 
schemes and their contracts but the life insur¬ 
ance business is an open book with the volume 
for every year of its life recorded in every 
112 


THE PROFESSION WHICH LEADS THEM ALL 


state in which the company is doing business. 
There is no question as to the maturity of 
every policy placed upon the books of the com¬ 
pany. The fire insurance company places its 
policies knowing that they will never be called 
upon to pay eighty-eight out of every one hun¬ 
dred of them, since only twelve per cent of 
fire policies are ever called upon for loss, while 
the life insurance company knows that every 
policy of life insurance will some day be a 
claim, either on the living or the death side. 
Therefore the law bases these contracts on the 
most exact science in the world. 

What of the salesmen who are build¬ 
ing this great business? Who are they and 
what reputation do they have? The last four 
years of our Government’s history has seen 
many new problems to be met. Money was 
being used to carry on the war in sums so 
great that the thought staggered us. What 
did the life insurance salesmen do? They sold 
for Uncle Sam one billion of Liberty Bonds, 
one-sixteenth of all the Liberty Bond issues, 
and on the sale of every issue took the lead 
and were so recognized by the Government as 
the leaders in the sales. This was a service 
to our Government which was given freely 
and unstintingly. The same record holds 
good in drives for the Red Cross, Y. M. C. A., 
113 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 


Knights of Columbus, and other organiza¬ 
tions. The life insurance profession was one 
hundred per cent proficient in all work of this 
kind and be it said to our everlasting credit 
that the banner of life insurance was through 
it all entirely without dishonor. 

That is not all that was done by the Life 
Insurance man. Out of our ranks went forth 
to the Colors as many men as from any other 
business or calling and during the war in No 
Man’s Land fell many a brave lad from our 
ranks, an honor to our Country and a credit 
to our profession. 

Nor is this yet all. The final test came in 
the last three months of 1918. Across our 
country swept the dreadful epidemic of Influ¬ 
enza leaving a trail of dead policyholders 
from the Atlantic to the Pacific, totalling 
more than 400,000 in number. During every 
day of the raging of this terrible scourge, the 
Life Insurance man was at his post and per¬ 
forming his full duty. During this short time 
they poured into the laps of needy benefi¬ 
ciaries, over a hundred millions of money— 
the proceeds of policies which they had placed 
on their friends. Do you ask for the greatest 
service which any profession has given to 
mankind? Need you go further than this 
example for your answer? Do you seek the 
114 


THE PROFESSION WHICH LEADS THEM ALL 

greatest human benefactor of all time? Is 
there one who can even make claim along with 
the Life Insurance man after the closing days 
of 1918? History was made in those few 
days. History which tells of trials and tribu¬ 
lations, of sacrifices of life and scenes of 
death, heartrending to even think about and 
the good Samaritan through it all was the 
Life Insurance man who never shirked a duty 
nor forsook a friend. 

Then is there a doubt as to the Life Insur¬ 
ance profession leading them all? Can you 
point to any business or profession so clean in 
all its dealings, which gives to the public as 
well as to its own policyholders such a full 
measure of service, which presents only con¬ 
tracts of value and whose representatives are 
the leaders of all sales forces and are so desig¬ 
nated by our Government itself—and who in 
the most supreme moments of the world per¬ 
formed the greatest deeds of service ever 
known? I tell you the Life Insurance man 
can hold his head high today. Higher than 
any man on earth. And as he does so he knows 
that 400,000 newly made beneficiaries are 
looking on him as the greatest benefactor in 
the world and showering on him every bless¬ 
ing which can be conceived by a person to 
whom the greatest service has been rendered. 

115 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 


SALESMAN IS ADVANCE AGENT 

No purchaser ever meets the salesman 
with open arms and a willingness to buy his 
goods. He must create an interest and must 
then make his sale. The salesman is there¬ 
fore a teacher. The Life Insurance man 
teaches more good in this country than any 
other salesman. He is the advance agent of 
civilization in many regards. He is at all 
times aiding society and the country in gen¬ 
eral. It was the trader who first entered 
Hudson Bay. The lawyer, the doctor, the 
preacher came later. It has ever been the 
salesman who marketed all inventions. The 
invention made without being marketed was 
of no value to mankind. It is the Life Insur¬ 
ance man who has marketed the greatest arti¬ 
cle in the world—Estates. Every person is 
working every day of their lives to create an 
estate. The Life Insurance man sells to him 
on a systematic plan just what he is working 
for. It has ever been by this Service that the 
Life Insurance man has stood forth in the best 
profession in the world. 

The biggest word in the business language 
of the world is not profit—^but Service. We 
applaud our Edisons, our Fords, our Wana- 
makers and our Fields, not because of the mil- 
116 


THE PROFESSION WHICH LEADS THEM ALL 

lions they have made but because of their 
Service to humanity. We honor the Life In¬ 
surance salesman as the greatest of them all 
because the service which he has rendered is 
greater than any of the others. 

VALUE OF FRIENDSHIP IN OUR BUSINESS 

Garfield said ^‘Friendship is the fairest 
flower that grows in the Garden of the 
World.’^ It was true then and is true today. 
Friendship today plays a more important part 
in business than ever before. Every sale that 
is made must produce a friend. The service 
of our business demands that. The man who 
has friends and can render them a service will 
inherit rewards in direct proportion to the 
depth of his friendship and the amount of 
service he can render. We are rewarded just 
in proportion as we put back into life that 
which we take out. We are blessed only in 
so far as we benefit the world. The greatest 
religion in business today is that of friend¬ 
ship. 

To be successful the Life Insurance man 
must serve as a protector to his policyholder. 
He must advise him. He must use his know¬ 
ledge as a means of rendering a great human 
service. His entire business must be one of 


117 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 


human service. This can only be done when 
he has won the confidence of his policyholders 
—made them his friends. 

There is no such thing as health, happi¬ 
ness and progress without friends. We can¬ 
not live alone. The man who has friends sees 
nature at its best. The sky is bluer, the sun 
shines brighter when we are doing a good act 
for a friend. 

The desire for friends must come from 
within and every salesman should cultivate it 
and make it grow into a part of himself. 
Make yourself worthy to be called a man. 
Make yourself known to your friends as a 
true friend. Gain this confidence and keep it 
as the most precious jewel in man's pos¬ 
session. 

LIFE INSURANCE MAN ONE OF CHARACTER 

Today the Life Insurance man must nec¬ 
essarily be one of character. If not he cannot 
succeed. Character is the only commodity in 
the market which does not fiuctuate according 
to supply and demand. It is always above par 
and never more so than in salesmanship. 

When all is said and done, true salesman¬ 
ship is but the fundamental of life's activities. 
It is just being one's self. We may study 
methods and principles of salesmanship but 
118 


THE PROFESSION WHICH LEADS THEM ALL 

until we sell a part of our very selves in each 
sale we have not even learned the first prin¬ 
ciple. 

Character is the one thing that tells in it 
all. Great men would not be so were it not 
for their character. The men who run our 
great railroads and manufacturing industries 
would not be successes were it not for their 
character. 

When the Company makes a contract with 
an agent he is furnished with supplies and is 
given an education in the selling end of the 
business. He then goes forth to make a suc¬ 
cess. To every man who goes out the Com¬ 
pany gives into his hands something which is 
more valuable and sacred than all else, its 
reputation. The Company entrusts every 
man with that and he has a part in making it. 
As he goes about his business he is known first 
by the name of Peoria Life and second by his 
own name. Everything he says and does is a 
good or bad name for the house. The Com¬ 
pany believes that it is placing its good name 
in safe hands or it would never have made the 
contract. Some day everyone of you will turn 
back your trust to us. When that day comes 
whether it be tomorrow or at the end of a long 
life of service every man should be able to lay 
it down without a blemish. Remember at all 


119 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

times that it is your duty to keep the reputa¬ 
tion of this Company just as white as your 
own personal reputation. Let there be no act 
or deed which will in any way reflect upon it. 
This is what the Company desires of you. It 
is the kind of Service we want each of you to 
render. We consider the reputation of the 
Company the biggest thing that you get 
from it. 

CONFIDENCE IS THE BASIS OF SERVICE 

It is the desire of everyone of us to render 
the best Service possible to be given. To do 
this we must have the confidence of our poli¬ 
cyholders. Confidence is the basis of all serv¬ 
ice. For every right that we have we owe a 
corresponding duty. We have a right to life, 
liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We 
owe a duty to others to grant them the same 
right. We must so conduct ourselves that we 
will not infringe on the rights of others. Just 
so then must we guard safely all rights of 
policyholders so that we may have their con¬ 
fidence. If you have the confidence of a per¬ 
son he will respond to your wishes. He will 
follow your suggestions and do what you want 
him to do. 

But if that confidence is lacking, he is not 
your friend and will not long be your cus- 
120 


THE PROFESSION WHICH LEADS THEM ALL 

tomer. More than anyone else does the Life 
Insurance man need the confidence of his 
policyholders. And he who realizes the true 
worth of his business will early realize that all 
of his transactions will be upon the basis of 
confidence. Confidence will be given by him. 
Confidence will be given to him and upon it he 
will build a great structure cemented to¬ 
gether by the bonds of friendship which will 
hold it firmly together for all time. 


121 






KEEP PUTTING NEW IDEAS IN YOUR 
CANVASS 



I 

4 









\ 


s 




r 

I 

• t 


• -t 





j 


CHAPTER IV 

Keep Putting New Ideas In Your Canvass 

Life insurance stands in a better position 
today than it has ever stood since its begin¬ 
ning. The times are big with opportunities 
for the Life Insurance man to get a just re¬ 
ward for his knowledge, energy and ability. 
Out of all of these times will come a great host 
of insurance leaders, leaders in our business 
who will go down in history as men worth 
while; leaders who will accomplish something 
more than ordinary. Those leaders will be 
the persons who not only go about their terri¬ 
tory seeing men and making canvasses but 
they are the ones who are using their heads 
today,—who are thinking—who are thinking 
out the very things that they want to do, plan¬ 
ning and doing them in a systematic way. 
And one of the things for which it is necessary 
that the Life Insurance man be a leader is to 
enable him to keep his canvass a live canvass 
and not a stale droll affair that he presents to 
every man year in and year out with the ex¬ 
pectation of getting results. 

The business houses of this country do not 
stand still. They keep up with the times. If 


126 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 


new conditions arise, they meet them. In fact, 
they are part of the new conditions as they 
come along. Our Government which is prob¬ 
ably the slowest to make changes of any insti¬ 
tution that we know of, keeps fairly up with 
the times. Changes are made to conform to 
conditions as they are brought about by the 
progress of this country. Every kind of insti¬ 
tution that depends upon marketing its goods 
to the public must keep right up to date and 
the measure of its success is just equal to the 
way in which it keeps up with the progress of 
the times. No Life Insurance man would feel 
like wearing one suit of clothes just as long as 
it would hang on him. He would decide that 
that is not good business. How much more 
important is it to the Life Insurance man that 
he keep his canvass dressed in new clothes 
every so often so that it will not tire him in the 
delivery of it and so that it will make the im¬ 
pression upon his prospect that it ought to 
make. 

The Life Insurance man today who does 
not improve and progress just as the times 
progress might as well date himself back 25 
years because if he is a back number he goes 
back very rapidly. All of the prospects that 
the Life Insurance man canvasses are human 
beings. Every human being is subject to 
126 


NEW IDEAS IN YOUE CANVASS 

fatigue. Every prospect immediately puts up 
his guards as soon as the agent begins to talk 
with him. It is a matter of self protection— 
it is one of the instincts of the human race— 
and the Life Insurance man’s duty is to make 
an impression upon that prospect; make an 
impression upon him so that he will give him 
time for the canvass. There is hardly a man 
in all the country who has not been canvassed 
for life insurance. Canvasses made by the 
average and the under average man are all 
about the same. But the canvass that gets 
across, gets the attention of the man, and gets 
his signature to the application is one that is 
not an old canvass that everybody has heard, 
but one which has new ideas in it. Every 
agent for this Company or any other Com¬ 
pany going out should find a new way of ex¬ 
pressing his arguments even if they are the 
very simplest and elementary arguments on 
life insurance. He can find a new way of ex¬ 
pressing them—a way that will attract the 
attention of the prospect and make him see 
the point. I do not believe in making a spec¬ 
tacular canvass in any way. I do not believe 
in the agent trying to become an elocutionist, 
but I do believe he can make his canvass a 
part of himself and dress it up in a way that 
127 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

he thinks is new and is the best for him, and 
then present it so that it will get the results. 

I once heard a preacher who was making 
a great reputation as one of the great minis¬ 
ters in his locality and the only thing about 
this man different from any other was that 
he turned his sentences around. He expressed 
them in a different way than most people ex¬ 
pressed their ideas. The ideas were just the 
same. They were no different from the aver¬ 
age man’s, but they were presented in a way 
which the people had not been used to hearing 
and he made a success. I take particular 
pleasure in reading all that I find of the ser¬ 
mons and lectures of the Reverend Hillis of 
Brooklyn. He is a great man—a broad man 
and he has a way of expressing his ideas 
which is peculiar to him and very attractive 
indeed and I firmly believe that that is the 
great part of his success. Of course, he is a 
man that is above the average, a man who 
would make good in any way that he planned, 
but with his ability he has realized that he can 
make it more pronounced by making a brand 
of his own argument to sell to the public. 
And by the way, he is a salesman just the 
same as the rest of us. He is selling his ideas. 
Instead of manufacturing an article and put¬ 
ting his name on it and selling it over the 
128 


NEW IDEAS IN YOUR CANVASS 


counters of the retail stores in this country, 
he is manufacturing his ideas and they are 
just as much Hillis ideas as if they were an 
article to be sold over the counter. 

Every prospect that you go to today with 
the old stereotyped arguments in the same old 
way will resent your canvass, and he should. 
But with just a little bit of change, a little bit 
of bringing up to date, he will be interested. 
Too many agents forget the purpose for which 
they call upon an applicant—the reason that 
they call upon him is to interest him in life 
insurance and get his signature. You can 
always remember that the prospect does not 
HAVE TO BUY, but that if the agent lives, HE 
MUST SELL. I firmly believe that one of the 
greatest drawbacks to the agent’s canvass to¬ 
day is that it begins with the wonderful fea¬ 
tures and possibilities of the policy that he is 
trying to sell and I think that is putting the 
cart before the horse. If the agent does not 
know his prospect and does not know what 
kind of policy to present to him then he is 
handicapping himself when he goes to the 
prospect. If he does know these things which 
he ought to know about his prospect, then the 
thing to do is to talk to him about his needs. 
That is what he is interested in. The prospect 
is interested in himself and not in the wonder- 


129 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

ful policy that the agent has to sell. Get on 
his side of the fence at once and then you are 
on common ground with him. How much 
chance of selling would an agent have to go 
to a merchant and try to sell him a horse when 
he has discarded his horse drawn vehicles and 
is using an automobile? The agent could talk 
himself black in the face without ever getting 
any place. 

My observation has been that a great 
many times an agent selling things begins im¬ 
mediately upon the great advantages of the 
article that he has to sell. Suppose the Na¬ 
tional Cash Register man went into the gro¬ 
cery store and immediately began to tell the 
grocery man about the wonderful advantages 
of his cash register which would cost $300.00. 
He has immediately made a bad impression 
upon his prospect. He has immediately 
caused him to put up his guards which will 
prevent any sale that the agent might have a 
chance of making. But if he showed that gro- 
ceryman how much time he could save at 
night in balancing his day's sales, how much 
more accurate and how much more satisfac¬ 
tory his work would be, then he has made an 
impression that has put him a long way 
toward the sale. He has shown the man an 
advantage to himself and whenever you show 
130 


NEW IDEAS IN YOUR CANVASS 

a prospect an advantage to himself, it is going 
to interest that prospect. What is it more 
than anything else that has sold the Overland 
car? It is the advertisement that they have 
put out v^hich always has the idea in it ''Get 
the folks out into the open air and out into 
the country.’’ That one thing has appealed 
to many people and started an argument at 
once in their minds that resulted in the pur¬ 
chase of the Overland car. 

The cleverest advertising, I do not say the 
best, I say the cleverest, that is written today 
and has been written for many, many years 
is the advertisement of the patent medicine 
and quack doctor. These advertisements 
never begin describing the thing that they 
want to sell. Many a poor sucker has paid out 
hundreds of dollars because he read the adver¬ 
tisement describing his symptoms and con¬ 
vinced himself that he had kidney trouble or 
some other trouble and that Dr. Quack’s rem¬ 
edy would cure him quickly. These advertise¬ 
ments simply talk to the prospect about him¬ 
self. They present to him a lot of symptoms 
which he applies to himself and then decides 
that he has exactly what they have described 
and ought to have their remedy. This is the 
way that the insurance man ought to present 
his argument. He should show to the pro- 
131 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 


spect that he is in a certain condition and that 
in that condition his needs are so and so, that 
the policy that he has to sell fits those needs. 
When he has done that the prospect will buy. 
Whenever the prospect sees that the agent has 
described the condition, described the remedy 
for his condition, one which will improve and 
benefit him, then the agent has made the sale. 
This is one of the ways that the life insurance 
man can keep his canvasses alive and fresh 
and up to date. If the patent medicine man 
began his ad by describing his great Birch 
Bark cure which had been a remedy since the 
beginning of time, etc., and so on, nobody 
would read half way down the article. But 
they paint a striking picture with the prospect 
right in the foreground showing him exactly 
where he stands and how he can improve 
himself. 

All people who write things about selling 
dwell a great deal upon creating the pros¬ 
pect’s interest and after it is all summed up 
there is just one way to do it, and that is to 
create an interest in the prospect himself. 
Show him his own interest in the transaction 
—not your interest. He is not interested at 
all in you, but whenever you get over on his 
side of the fence and present arguments to 
him which show him his interest and show 


132 


NEW IDEAS IN YOUR CANVASS 

him the advantage that your plan has for him, 
then you will arouse his interest, then you will 
get the statement from him which will enable 
you to apply the balance of your arguments 
to close your sale. Whenever the agent has 
aroused the interest of his prospect, right then 
is the time that that agent should have in com¬ 
mand all facts and arguments well thought 
out by himself, well dressed up in new ideas, 
the very best way to present them so that he 
can handle the canvass, and he will do it from 
that time forward in such a way that he will 
be master of the situation. If he has to floun¬ 
der around and become excited because his 
prospect has asked him a question that was 
not flgured in his canvass as he intended to 
present it, then he will ruin his chance of sale 
after he has created it. But if his arguments 
are so well thought out according to the needs 
of the prospect he will be able to meet any 
phase of it as soon as it presents itself. And 
I think it is the absolute duty of every agent 
in the fleld to keep his canvass fresh—to keep 
it up to date—to keep changing it around, not 
in its principal points, but in the way of say¬ 
ing it. 

If a public lecturer went out over the 
country and delivered his same lecture year in 
and year out, there would not be very many 
133 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

years until he would not have any audience. 
They would be tired of it. It would be stale, 
and if the insurance man thinks that he can 
present a stale argument to prospects year in 
and year out and get any results, then he is 
thinking wrong, because it cannot be done. If 
you are selling a G. P. A. policy there were 
thousands of conditions arising during the 
past year which can be added to the canvass 
on the G. P. A. policy and make it so that it 
will be fresh every time that the agent pre¬ 
sents that canvass. If you are selling Income 
insurance, just think of the vast number of 
arguments that have come up in this kind of 
insurance within the past two years. Is there 
any need for the agent having a stale canvass 
on this form of insurance? And just so it is 
with every other policy that the agent has to 
sell. Get out of this habit of making your 
canvass like the boy speaking a piece. We 
have all heard the boy who attempted to 
make his speech at school about “the boy who 
stood on the burning deck,” etc. We have all 
heard that boy who got just so far and then 
began over half a dozen times and couldn’t get 
any place, and if somebody coughed in the 
room, he was entirely done. The reason was 
that he tried to memorize the words and not 
the ideas. The insurance man should know 
134 


NEW IDEAS IN YOUR CANVASS 

the points about his policy. He should know 
the ideas of his policy and then dress them up 
in his own words so that he can present them 
in the strongest possible way as a part of him¬ 
self. The canvass is a part of the agent^s self 
which he sells in every sale. He ought to think 
at all times that every bit of this service that 
he is selling has his name on it and always 
will have his name stamped on it. He ought 
to be willing to leave it with the prospect with 
that name knowing that it is the very best 
article that he can put out and that it will 
stand the test. We can all remember back to 
the time when William Jennings Bryan was 
unheard of in this country. We all know 
what put him to the front in one day. The 
speech that he made at the Democratic con¬ 
vention, which afterwards nominated him for 
President, was the very thing that made him 
a great man, and if we read that speech, there 
are no new ideas in it, but he just put these 
old familiar ideas into a new dress and ex¬ 
pressed them with so much enthusiasm and so 
much earnestness and force that it so electri¬ 
fied the convention that it immediately nomi¬ 
nated him for President. 

It is just so with all of the other efforts of 
great men who have put themselves forward. 
It is very hard to get an absolutely new idea, 
135 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

but there are millions of ways of expressing 
old ideas so that they come back, take their 
places and accomplish the desired result. I 
think the agent who keeps his canvass fresh 
and who keeps it up to date improves his own 
ideas and broadens his own ability so that he 
is a much bigger success. If he just adds to 
these newly dressed canvasses his determina¬ 
tion to stick and hang on and make good, then 
there is little question about his success. 

Determination plays a great part in the 
life insurance agenUs success. If you look 
back over history you will find that all of the 
great things that have been accomplished have 
been done through the strong determination 
of some man. The cable which has played 
such an important part in international busi¬ 
ness would never have been laid across the 
Atlantic Ocean had not one man had a deter¬ 
mination to accomplish that feaf. We would 
never have had the steamboat, the locomotive, 
the telephone, the telegraph except for the 
strong determination of the person who had 
decided that he was going to accomplish re¬ 
sults which he had thought out in his mind. 
If we sit down some day and look at the va¬ 
rious maps of the world as they have been 
changed from time to time, to every one of 
these changes, we can trace a firm determina- 
136 


NEW IDEAS IN YOUR CANVASS 

tion of some one man and had it not been for 
this determination the change would not have 
been made. If Columbus had not had the firm 
determination to “sail westward” there would 
have been no change in the map at that time. 
But he had such a firm conviction in his ideas 
and such a determination to accomplish his 
purpose that time after time did he go to 
Queen Isabella of Spain until he had her con¬ 
vinced and she sold her jewels to furnish him 
money to accomplish his purpose. It was his 
determination that did it all. We all remem¬ 
ber seeing in our history of the United States 
and particularly in the history of the Civil 
War that picture of Phil Sheridan on his 
black horse charging up to his men who were 
retreating and saying, “Turn boys, turn, we 
are going back,” and they did go back and 
when they went back they won a victory. It 
was just the determination of that one man 
that accomplished this purpose. It was noth¬ 
ing else. 

The life insurance man succeeds only in 
proportion to the great determination that he 
has to make good. If he has a determination 
to build up an agency and sees a vision in that 
agency, he will build it. If he has everything 
else except determination to build to a certain 
point, he will fail. Hence, I say that if the 
137 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 


agent backs up his newly dressed canvass with 
a great determination to make good, then he 
will find himself an early success. I know 
men in the insurance business who are at the 
top of the profession and whose success is 
almost solely due to that great determination 
which they had to make good, a determina¬ 
tion so strong that it permitted no obstacles 
to stand in the way of success. They were 
willing and anxious to tackle the very strong¬ 
est jobs that came in their way, knowing that 
to overcome them meant that they would be 
stronger and better able to cope with the next 
situation which came up. 

A new canvass and a big determination, 
boys, will build your agency up to the highest 
structure in this country. 


138 


THE DUTY OF EVERY GENERAL 
AGENT TO EDUCATE HIS 
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CHAPTER V 


The Duty op Every General Agent to 
Educate His Sub-Agents 

A General Agency is not a success simply 
because the general agent himself produces a 
large volume of personal business. If that be 
the case it is only a personal agency. It is 
commendable and is very necessary that the 
general agent be a leader among his men in 
personal production, but to make his general 
agency grow to the proper proportions, to 
make it assume the lines of a general agency 
and to make his territory develop as it should 
properly develop, contemplates a broader 
foundation than the mere production of per¬ 
sonal business. 

One successful man in the insurance busi¬ 
ness has said “Behind every successful effort 
to increase an agent’s effectiveness must lie 
the ability to give part of yourself to the 
man.” In other words, every general agent 
should realize as his first duty the necessity of 
giving to his agents all that he has in him to 
help them and of each of them make the very 
best kind of success that he can make. If it 
is his desire that his general agency grow and 
141 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 


that his territory be developed properly, he 
must give the best that is in him to his sub¬ 
agents. He must do this in a way that will 
benefit them. The building of a general 
agency is just simply a school of instruction 
with the general agent as principal. And just 
to that proportion that he is a successful and 
competent teacher will his general agency be 
a success. 

The object of a person taking a general 
agent’s contract is to have under his control 
certain territory which he promises to develop 
for the Company. The Company has that lo¬ 
cality as part of its total territory that it de¬ 
sires developed and it in effect goes into 
partnership with the general agent to have 
him do the Company’s business in his particu¬ 
lar territory. Then, the agent is building for 
himself a little Company in that territory. 
Every agent which he has stands in just the 
same relation to him as he does to the Com¬ 
pany. It is the Company’s duty to give every 
kind of cooperation, every kind of education, 
and every kind of reasonable assistance to the 
general agent to make him grow and extend 
his business and make a bigger and better suc¬ 
cess. It is the general agent’s business and 
duty to give the same kind of attention and 
service to his sub-agents and make of them 
142 


THE DUTY OF EVERY GENERAL AGENT 

successes. The Company should not be ex¬ 
pected to look past the general agent to his 
sub-agents and do his educational work for 
him. That of itself contradicts the very in¬ 
tention and effect of a general agent’s con¬ 
tract. To build in any business we must have 
good material and then that material must be 
properly coached to success. 

If you take the greatest chemist in the 
world and set him to work experimenting to 
turn some baser metal into gold and he is suc¬ 
cessful in doing so and if he cannot impart the 
knowledge of the way he accomplished his 
feat, then he is not a success. He is not a 
match for the man who is less brilliant than 
he, but who has the ability to impart his know¬ 
ledge to other people. The success of Edison 
has been in his ability to impart his know¬ 
ledge to other persons and thereby to broaden 
his business to the point of making it the 
greatest of its kind in the world. The success 
of Mr. Schwab, the greatest sales director of 
the times, has been in his ability to impart his 
knowledge to others and stimulate them to 
success. He has always been untiring in 
coaching men under him until they had ac¬ 
complished the object for which they had 
made their plans. Had it been otherwise Mr. 
Schwab would have been tying himself down 
143 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURAINCE 


to details—down to his own personal produc¬ 
tion, and the business of the United States 
Steel Company would have been very meager 
as compared to its proportions today. Had it 
not been for this characteristic the sending of 
our soldiers to France would have continued 
to go on a very unsatisfactory basis and the 
food stuffs and the merchandise of this coun¬ 
try would have lain without distribution and 
the war would not have been successfully ter¬ 
minated. 

To be unable to pass along for the use of 
his sub-agents some fragments of his own 
ability stamps a man as lacking in organiza¬ 
tion abilities and leaves his men to rise or fall 
entirely on their own personal results, and as 
a rule, men left to drift in this manner, 
usually fail. To get results today in an or¬ 
ganization, it must be united, and if it is a 
sales organization, the salesmen must have 
the active cooperation of some stronger per¬ 
son to not only guide them but to actually 
meet them on their own field of endeavor and 
see the conditions at first hand. If this was 
not the case and if this was not the require¬ 
ment of a general agent then the Company 
would not need general agencies and all of 
their business could be transacted direct with 
every single person having contract with the 
144 


THE DUTY OF EVERY GENERAL AGENT 

Company. We all know that this method 
would be weak; that the Company could not 
progress and that our territory would remain 
undeveloped. We have urged times without 
number that if a general agent employs a 
sub-agent, it is his duty to go with that sub¬ 
agent and teach him how to do the business; 
teach him our particular methods of business, 
no matter if he is an old and educated insur¬ 
ance man; teach him the shortest lines to suc¬ 
cess as an agent, and in so doing, he will make 
a good man out of him. 

Some general agents follow this plan. 
Many of them spend time and money in hunt¬ 
ing up a sub-agent and making contract with 
him in some particular locality and then go 
back home with the firm expectation that the 
man will send in applications and develop the 
territory. Of course, the general agent in 
this regard is disappointed because few, and 
very few, of the agents started in this way 
ever send in their first applications, but there 
are a very great many sub-agents who are 
contracted with in this manner who are cap¬ 
able of producing in their territory, with the 
right kind of assistance and the right kind of 
coaching, at least $100,000.00 of business. So 
the very first thing that the general agent 
must realize and have firmly fixed in his mind 
145 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

is his duty when taking a general agent^s con¬ 
tract. It is very poor judgment to procure a 
general agent’s contract covering a specified 
territory and then make no attempt to pro¬ 
cure for his Company the amount of business 
which that territory ought to produce for the 
Company. In other words, the agent who does 
not develop his territory, either does not rec¬ 
ognize the object for which the Company 
makes him a general agent’s contract, or is 
not the proper person to make the develop¬ 
ment necessary to call himself a general 
agent. The man who wants to sell life insur¬ 
ance and who is capable of making a success 
in the business must want to sell insurance 
badly enough to get thoroughly familiar with 
the details of the business. He must know 
how to find prospects; he must know what he 
is selling and he must know how to sell it. If 
it is left to him to dig out this information, his 
success will be very slow, but the general 
agent can put him forward in a way that will 
please him and that will develop and will 
bring out the enthusiasm which he has if he 
has any ability, and make of him a success. 
It is only by the general agent devoting his 
time and his personal attention to seeing to it, 
that every agent he has hired is properly 
started and when he has done that, he need 
146 


THE DUTY OF EVERY GENERAL AGENT 

not worry about his agency making the proper 
progress from year to year. 

I do not mean to indicate that every per¬ 
son can be a general agent and properly han¬ 
dle men and develop territory, but I do mean 
that a general agent should know himself well 
enough to be able to determine whether or not 
he has the proper ability along this line. If 
he has not, then he has no right to expect the 
Company to let territory lie idle for him. He 
is doing himself just as great an injustice as 
he is his Company because if he is not fitted 
to properly handle men and develop them and 
make them successes and his territory a suc¬ 
cessful agency, then he is making just as 
great a mistake as a banker would if he tried 
to fill the position of chemist. 

The idea that I mean to convey is that first 
a man should determine whether he is fitted 
for a general agency and then after he has 
made that decision, he should set about to 
make himself a successful general agent. If 
he does not have the qualifications of a gen¬ 
eral agent, then there is plenty of money to 
be made in the writing of personal business 
and the personal agency is what he ought to 
take, with smaller territory, having an idea 
single in his mind to produce the greatest 
147 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 


volume of business that can be produced and 
do it himself and with his local helpers. 

THE GENERAL AGENT SHOULD KNOW HIMSELF 

The first essential of a general agent be¬ 
fore he ever signs a general agent’s contract is 
to know himself and his own ability. He 
ought first to ask himself whether he is cap¬ 
able of handling a general agency before he 
asks for a general agent’s contract. He ought 
to ask himself whether he can develop terri¬ 
tory; whether he can handle men and bring 
out the very best there is in them; whether he 
can impart his knowledge to his sub-agents 
and whether or not he is successful himself. 
Then he should find out along what lines he 
expects to build a general agency. He should 
ask himself whether or not the foundation he 
has in his mind as his ideal is broad enough 
on which to base a general agency and make 
of it a success. He must realize that in order 
to make a success, he must make successes for 
other people. He must have no little measly 
ideas of selfishness in his mind that will not 
permit his sub-agents under him to grow into 
big men. Their success is his success and the 
larger their success, the greater is his own. 
The man who thinks in his own mind that he 
must tower away above his general agency 
148 


THE DUTY OF EVERY GENERAL AGENT 

and all of the members of his general agency 
in such a manner that they are mere pigmies, 
has not the proper ideal of a successful sales 
organization. He does not know the first 
principles of cooperation. He never has and 
likely never will make the first step of success 
in building a business. It is a very great 
credit to any general agency to train men so 
well that they can be recommended for pro¬ 
motion to fill other general agencies of the 
Company. 

There are those kind of men who stand in 
their own light and after a certain time they 
get to the point of living just around the cor¬ 
ner. He is going to do so and so just in a little 
while but he never catches up with that little 
while and consequently begins his drift back¬ 
wards, at a certain time and with proper con¬ 
ditions until someone—^possibly one of his own 
sub-agents—takes his place and he is rele¬ 
gated to the rear as a failure. It is just as nec¬ 
essary for a general agent to analyze his own 
self and determine his own weaknesses as it is 
for him to analyze his sub-agents. A man 
must know himself in order to be able to man¬ 
age himself. The Government decided in 
building our draft army that personal tests 
of the individual were the most valuable dis¬ 
cipline to be made; that it was the best index 
149 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

to ability, and that the man of ability was the 
man to put forward and hold the positions to 
make the most effective army. They did not 
consider it necessary that a man have a tech¬ 
nical university education, but it was neces¬ 
sary for him to have common sense, and for 
him to be able to apply himself and to impart 
his knowledge to other people in order for him 
to be successful and especially for him to be 
material for a commissioned officer in the 
army. What difference is there between an 
officer in the army leading his men to success 
and a general agent leading his men to suc¬ 
cess? Is there any? Absolutely none. If the 
officer in charge of his company left any single 
one man without his instructions, his organ¬ 
ization—his company, would not be a success. 
One private without the knowledge necessary 
to make him keep proper step with all of the 
others would throw the company so much out 
of regular time and cadence that it could not 
pass inspection. Any one person without suf¬ 
ficient knowledge to obey commands would be 
a failure and likewise the company would be a 
failure and the responsibility of its failure 
would rest on the officer in charge. 

If a general agent leaves one of his sub¬ 
agents without the proper help and without 
the proper instruction, he is just as guilty of 
160 


THE DUTY OF EVERY GENERAL AGENT 

not performing his duty as is the officer build¬ 
ing his company and he ought to subject him¬ 
self to the same kind of penalties to which an 
officer would be subjected if he neglected his 
duty, and the least penalty that could be in¬ 
flicted upon the officer would be his dismissal 
from his position and humiliation before his 
men. The general agent ought to make just 
that kind of stringent rule for himself. If he 
cannot handle his general agency, he ought to 
voluntarily dismiss himself and take a sub¬ 
agency until he is material for a general 
agent, if he ever can be. 

The mental tests which the Government 
gave to the soldiers to find out in what posi¬ 
tion they could best perform their duty to the 
Government, were not intended to replace 
their methods of judging a man’s value to the 
service. The officers making the tests did not 
claim that they could tell without question 
what kind of a soldier the man would make, 
but they were reasonably certain that the 
opinion which they formed from the tests 
helped them to measure a man correctly as to 
his mental intelligence. They tried to help 
the man according to his mental intelligence 
and place him properly where he would be of 
the most benefit to himself; where he would 
be in a just and reasonable position from his 
151 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

own standpoint, and the best position from 
the Government’s standpoint. They did not 
try by any of these tests to measure the loyalty 
or power to command nor did they try to 
measure the emotional traits of any person 
which would enable him to “carry on,” but 
they left those traits and those standards and 
those personal elements to be brought out by 
the officer whose duty it was to make of him a 
good efficient soldier. They merely hired 
agents on the kind of contracts to which each 
individual was entitled. 

I think this is a splendid illustration of 
the duty of the general agent in building up 
his agency organization in order to handle a 
general agency. After you have decided that 
a man is entitled to have a contract with you 
and that he is a good clean man and that he 
has reasonable intelligence so that he can 
make at least some success in the business, it 
is the general agent’s duty to put himself in 
the place of the officer developing the company 
and that is to bring out of every man all of 
the character that he has and all of the suc¬ 
cess that there is in that man. He must be 
prepared to be patient; to give to the man the 
best and the very best that he can. It is not 
all roses instructing children in a public 
school; it is not all roses in building a sales 
162 


THE DUTY OF EVERY GENERAL AGENT 

organization. There are many disappoint¬ 
ments; there are many things to try our pa¬ 
tience; there are many times that we find that 
we have on our hands failures, but that sales 
manager or that general agent shows a bigger 
and broader ability by showing his patience— 
by showing his hard work and by showing his 
determination and his intention to give to the 
man just as much of himself as he possibly 
can impart to him and help make him a suc¬ 
cess. 

The Government found that 26% of the 
United States soldiers were above the average 
in intelligence and they found that the officers 
could develop the soldiers placed in their 
proper positions into a successful army able 
to entirely cooperate with each other to suc¬ 
cess greater than had ever been dreamed of in 
the history of any army building in all the 
world. The secret of the whole success was 
that the Government got down to a plain and 
systematic plan of building an army, first 
selecting officers, then selecting men and prop¬ 
erly placing them as private individuals in 
that army, and then requiring the officers in 
charge to build an efficient army by imparting 
to each individual the knowledge and the 
spirit and the enthusiasm necessary to make 
them successful. When these men constitut- 


153 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

ing an army built in this way were led over 
the top in France by proud, efficient United 
States officers, success crowned their efforts 
in greater measure than had ever been seen in 
any country in the world, and this success 
continued and was the talk of the entire 
world. It was not so much the bravery of our 
men as superior to that of any other army 
fighting at the front because—leUs admit that 
they were no braver than their fellow soldiers 
of any other country, but it was their united 
effort; it was their proper knowledge; it was 
their proper spirit and it was the splendid 
enthusiasm that had been instilled into them 
that led them on to success with one united 
front. And the general agent who presents 
that kind of a front in the insurance business 
will be the biggest success in the business and 
will carry away with him the honors which 
are due to him. 

TEST YOURSELF BEFORE YOU JUDGE OTHERS 

The wise agent knows his ability. He 
knows his power; he knows his energy and 
how to conserve it. He is quick to judge the 
material that he has in his agency plans. He 
figures on the future development of his men; 
he looks at them with broad enough vision 
that he can see over a period of years a gen- 
154 


THE DUTY OF EVERY GENERAL AGENT 

eral agency grow in the territory over which 
he has been agent, to the point of a great 
structure, the outlines of which make him 
proud of having accomplished something. In 
order to best serve himself—in order to make 
his general agency take its proper propor¬ 
tions, he must test himself along the same 
lines which he tests his sub-agents. First he 
must be satisfied about the use of his time and 
about his methods of work; he should ask him¬ 
self a lot of very plain questions and answer 
them just as plainly and honestly and con¬ 
scientiously as he would like his sub-agents 
to answer him if he were to ask the same 
questions of them. 

Among the various things that he should 
ask himself are these: Do I plan my work sys¬ 
tematically? Do I overlook the possibilities 
of the smaller towns? How many towns in 
my territory were not worked this year? And 
right in this connection, let me say that many 
an agent is overlooking large possibilities in 
the insurance business because he does not like 
to put up with the inconveniences of the small 
town. Don’t forget that the small town is the 
nucleus for a very big volume of business and 
some of our best business has been written 
from little bits of places. Do I spend too much 
time loafing? Do I waste valuable time in 
155 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 


doing little detail work or doing things around 
my home that can be done for a little bit of 
cost by someone else ? How many agents have 
I that did not produce business this year? 
Why didn’t they produce? Was it any fault 
of mine? Could I have done anything to help 
them produce some business? What methods 
do I use in helping my agents produce pros¬ 
pects? Did I have them keep prospect cards? 
Do I have them make reports to me? Do I 
teach my agents to properly analyze the pros¬ 
pect’s insurance needs before approaching 
him? In other words, do I teach him to know 
his man before he approaches him? Do I in¬ 
struct my agents so that they can better read 
human nature? How many men in my terri¬ 
tory who have no policy with my Company? 
Have you ever stopped to think that when a 
policy is written on a person in a locality, the 
insurance agents begin immediately to figure 
how they could have gotten their share, and in 
almost every instance a live agent could have 
had his part of the business? 

When you hear of a man taking a big 
policy, do you go and congratulate him, even 
if it went to some other company besides your 
own? It makes him feel good and it makes 
him have a very high regard of you. Do I use 
care in selecting men with ability to succeed? 

156 


THE DUTY OF EVERY GENERAL AGENT 


It is no credit for a general agent to make 
contracts with men who have no possibilities 
in the business. The general agent should not 
contract with a man unless he thinks he can 
be made to produce some business, not neces¬ 
sarily a big volume of business, but at least 
some, and it is not necessary that he person¬ 
ally write the business alone, but that he has 
the means of leading you or some other one of 
your agents to prospects who can be closed, 
then he is the man with whom to make con¬ 
tract. 

Did I show any increase in my business 
last year, not only in the volume of business 
but in the character of business; in the re¬ 
newal collections and in every phase of the 
business which goes to make a general agency 
successful? Have you ever asked these ques¬ 
tions of yourself? How have you answered 
them? 

Then along the organization line, have you 
ever asked yourself a few of these questions: 
Do I maintain an organization large enough 
to cover my territory properly? Remember 
that when the Company grants you a general 
agency, it contemplates you being the Com¬ 
pany in that territory and expects you to de¬ 
velop it in the proper method, not only from 
the production of business, but from the or- 
167 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 


ganization standpoint so that your organiza¬ 
tion will cover the entire territory. Other¬ 
wise you are not progressing and the Com¬ 
pany has made a mistake in giving you so 
much territory. Do I make every effort to 
hire and train men? Do I get my men to¬ 
gether so that they cooperate with each other 
and with me? Do I work with my agents and 
observe their methods? If you have never 
worked with your sub-agents, you don’t know 
anything about how they do their business. 
You don’t know their weaknesses; you don’t 
know their strength. Do I study their weak 
points and give them suggestions for improve¬ 
ment? Do I give my men a quota or allot¬ 
ment of business and then urge them to make 
it? Do I help them to make their allotments? 
Do I realize that the success of my organiza¬ 
tion is merely a question of the right kind of 
men who can hold up their end of the work? 
Do I praise my men when they make good rec¬ 
ords? Do I have the hearty cooperation of my 
agents at all times? Am I acquainted with 
the family of each sub-agent that I have and 
do I know the conditions surrounding the 
family? How have you answered these ques¬ 
tions? Every one of these questions apply to 
every general agent in the business and his 
success is recorded at the Home Office in ac- 


168 


THE DUTY OF EVERY GENERAL AGENT 

cordance with the kind of answers he gives to 
these particular questions. 

Do I really give service in my general 
agency? Do I realize the value of service to 
agents and to policyholders? Do I impress my 
agents with this fact? Am I familiar with 
the policies and methods of other companies? 
Do I read good insurance papers and keep up 
with the times? Am I on good terms with the 
other insurance agents in my territory? Do 
I belong to the Life Underwriters’ Associa¬ 
tion? Am I continually improving my knowl¬ 
edge of the service of insurance and its won¬ 
derful future? Do I study salesmanship 
methods of other lines and adopt them for my 
own use? In this connection, I think the more 
an agent studies the methods of a commercial 
institution, the broader he makes himself in 
the insurance business. Do I realize that the 
greatest service that.I can render a man is to 
teach my agents to sell him an insurance pol¬ 
icy? Do I have the whole-hearted cooperation 
of every agent and do I give him whole¬ 
hearted cooperation in return? Do I encour¬ 
age my agents to give me new selling ideas so 
that all can profit by them? Have I mapped 
out my work for the coming year? Am I 
equipped mentally and physically to make my 
159 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 


agency organization as efficient as it can pos¬ 
sibly be made? 

The general agent who tests himself along 
these lines and answers all the above ques¬ 
tions satisfactorily to his own conscience will 
be a greater success after he has done so and 
every returning year he will examine himself 
as did the people of old when they annually 
measured themselves by the Ten Command¬ 
ments. He will find that he has not only 
grown in his personal production but that his 
agency has made strides which surprise him. 
There is nothing mysterious about it. There 
is no trick about it. It is just a man getting 
right down and looking himself squarely in 
the face and realizing what he is here for— 
what business he has to do and then determin¬ 
ing just how is the best way to do it. Some 
one has said that efficiency is the way some 
other fellow would run your business if you 
would let him do it, but it is a real test of what 
ought to be done if the person would be honest 
and fair with his own conscience and do just 
what it dictates to him as the proper and nec¬ 
essary thing for him to do if he intends to be 
a success in the life insurance business. Try 
to answer the above questions yourself. It 
will not do you any harm. It may set you on 
the right track to bigger business. It may 
160 


THE DUTY OF EVERY GENERAL AGENT 


make your general agency a little better this 
year. If it does, you have spent the time very 
well indeed. Some evening by the fireside 
would be a good time to think over all of these 
things and settle the matter with yourself and 
see whether or not you are as big a man as 
you really think you are. 

WHEN AN AGENT FINDS HIMSELF 

When the United States entered the war 
the whole country was entirely engrossed in 
commercialism—money mad. It took but a 
very short while to begin the building of an 
army. It was not long until every place had 
the appearance of war, but it was several 
months before we got down to real business. 
Why? Because it took time for the people to 
find themselves. It took the loss of ships; it 
took the casualty lists to awaken the people. 
We never began to win the war until the allied 
army found its soul. When it did find its soul 
it became an inspired, unconquerable force 
and began its march to victory. 

No person succeeds to the full extent until 
he has found his soul. We may push ahead 
and make money. We may plan and execute 
our plans, but until we see the vision of the 
future with the sum total of our life as a great 
ideal we cannot and will not make a per- 
161 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

manent success. The Life Insurance agent 
who goes into the business and fails to see that 
long line of beneficiaries blessing his pathway 
and fairly strewing it with roses for the great 
good deeds of his work, has not found him¬ 
self. If he does not see a structure in his gen¬ 
eral agency which he considers the biggest 
and best which he can possibly build in any 
business or calling, he has not chosen the right 
profession. If he does not become enthusias¬ 
tic over his calling to the extent of wanting 
everybody to know that he is engaged in the 
Life Insurance profession and approaching 
everyone face to face as the representative of 
the greatest business on earth, then he is an 
excuse in his profession and has not found 
himself. 

Let the Life Insurance agent find his soul; 
let him see his profession in the right light, 
then he is a success. Then he devotes not only 
a certain number of hours to the business but 
his whole life is his business hours. He lives 
and breathes the business of Life Insurance. 
His enthusiasm and earnestness electrify all 
with whom he comes in contact. He sees not 
only a living for his family but a great moun¬ 
tain of good deeds which he can leave behind 
him as a legacy to his children. A man always 
succeeds in proportion to the extent to which 
162 


THE DUTY OF EVERY GENERAL AGENT 

he finds his soul. Think of it,—am I not 
right? Are you not right now thinking of 
men in the business who are only excuses in 
the profession because they have not found 
themselves—have not found their souls? 

SYSTEM MUST CONTEMPLATE MORE THAN 
WORK 

No nation on earth has greater patriotism 
or love for country than the United States. 
In all of its history when need there was for 
an army, we had volunteers a plenty. Wash¬ 
ington saved the nation with volunteers. Lin¬ 
coln fought the Civil War with men from 
every walk of life, who came at his call for 
help. In those days the volunteer system did 
the work and won the war, but it outlived its 
usefulness. It had no system. When the na¬ 
tion had grown to be the greatest commercial 
nation in all the world, it was necessary for 
the means of carrying on a war to keep pace 
with the times and hence the draft system 
during the recent war. Many men said “I 
don’t want to be drafted, I will volunteer be¬ 
fore they reach me.” The draft is a splendid 
example of a system revised and brought up 
to date. In the selective system it took from 
the nonessential businesses the men who could 
best be spared. It contemplated keeping up 
163 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

the business at home. It selected only persons 
who were physically fit and not only that, but 
placed them in that part of the army where 
they would be most effective, have the best 
chance for themselves and do the most good. 

The old volunteer system was all right in 
its day. It had its origin in the days of chiv¬ 
alry when war was not a business or a contest 
of industry or mechanics, but a battle of 
brawn; when armies could live largely upon 
the country as they advanced, and a nation^s 
fate was decided on the field of battle. It ad¬ 
hered to the doctrine that the chemist may be 
permitted to lay aside his research, and the 
trained mechanic his lathe, while the un¬ 
skilled laborer and the vagrant continued in 
unproductive paths. It took no account of the 
industrial life which must be maintained be¬ 
hind the battlefront that armies may be fed, 
clothed, and armed. 

But the new system was devised, planned 
and successfully carried out. The war was 
won and the men returned to the various voca¬ 
tions in a systematic way, creditable to the 
nation and the world as the best example of 
army building, the best army selection and the 
best army demobilization. 

Many a life insurance agent is working 
under the old volunteer system. He is out of 
164 


THE DUTY OF EVERY GENERAL AGENT 


date. He is, in fact, being relegated to the 
rear. He is not up to date. His system does 
not contemplate the discipline necessary to 
success. He volunteers a few hours a week 
and for his efforts makes for Mary and the 
baby a meager living, not at all satisfactory 
to them or creditable to him. He must loaf 
just so much around the lodge halls with other 
loafer volunteers. He has no systematic plans 
for success. If he has a quota or an allotment 
it is only on paper and when the end of the 
month comes, if he has not made his allotment 
the failure causes no feeling of shame or re¬ 
gret for him. He is drifting along the easy 
road. No danger for him. As he goes about 
his work (better call it a job) the people know 
him as a good sort of fellow, but wonder how 
he gets along. They do not give him the aid of 
saying he is a success. He belongs to the 
waste army of the Republic. The life insur¬ 
ance business would be better off if this entire 
army were demobilized—sent home with dis¬ 
honorable discharges. They are next to the 
crooks in giving our business a bad repu¬ 
tation. 

The live agent today must bring his sys¬ 
tem up to date. He must contemplate 20th 
century people and 20th century methods. 
We are living in a country grown to a hun- 
165 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

dred and ten million population and who have 
grown past the plainsman and the settler into 
the greatest aggregation of successful busi¬ 
nesses in the world. Methods 25 years old 
will no more succeed today than could the vol¬ 
unteer system of Lincoln have won the war. 
The system of every agent to be a successful 
one must be broad and up to date and pro¬ 
gressive. It is only in such a system that a 
successful agency can be built. If you have 
not already brought yourself entirely up to 
date in every way, do so at once. DonT be a 
volunteer. Get in the draft at once and if you 
canT discipline yourself into success, get un¬ 
der a strict officer who can make you use your 
five talents in the way the Lord intended you 
to use them. 

OVER THE ALPS LIES ITALY 

Too many men quit at the grade with little 
effort and hence the pathway of life is strewn 
with too many failures. It takes strength and 
determination to win and especially so today 
when success is not alone to the strong in body 
but to the strong well executed plans. 

In 1896, 50,000 men on their way to Klon- 
dyke climbed and toiled and struggled on their 
way until they came to Chilkoot Pass. Here 
half of them turned back. They were within 
166 


THE DUTY OF EVERY GENERAL AGENT 

a day’s journey of success but quit at the 
grade which looked bad. Chilkoot Pass was 
largely a mental hazard. It took courage, grit 
and “sticktoitiveness” to conquer it. Over the 
pass was an easy road to the Klondyke. But 
the fainthearted, the weak, those of small will 
power, turned back—failures. 

In the Life Insurance business there are 
too many who quit at Chilkoot Pass. Get just 
half way—here they find that it takes hard 
work to succeed. They must toil for 10 hours 
a day for at least 5 days a week to succeed and 
the task is a mountain to them, a mountain 
which they will not cross. Too many general 
agents have not the courage and determina¬ 
tion and the patience to train sub-agents and 
build their agencies broader. They quit at 
the Pass without making a success in the 
business. 

A general agency contemplates the devel¬ 
opment of a territory, not the writing of 
enough business to make a living, but the 
proper placing of the Company’s goods in the 
hands of the population of that territory. A 
little personal business deserves only a little 
territory but a large territory must be organ¬ 
ized if the general agency is to grow and be a 
success—if the Company is to be a success in 
the territory. 


167 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 


PATIENCE 

I know of no business which requires more 
patience than does the business of Life In¬ 
surance. Any profession which deals with 
people requires that a person know human 
nature and know how to deal with it. If an 
agent is to produce business, if he is to secure 
many applications, he must learn how to sell. 
He must learn to combat human nature. He 
should study the way people buy—not how to 
sell them. He should keep in mind the mo¬ 
tives that move men and play on them. All 
persons will not flock to him with open arms 
but he must toil along meeting rebukes tact¬ 
fully and guiding his prospect to the dotted 
line with diplomacy and judgment. If a Gen¬ 
eral Agent is to build up an organization he 
must know human nature and learn how to 
deal with it in sub-agents. He must be pre¬ 
pared to stand a lot of grief. He cannot pick 
ideal persons and set them into positions. He 
cannot select men with the natures pleasing to 
him or easy to handle, but he must expect all 
kinds and he will get all kinds. 

One may be a crank of the worst kind on 
some subject, but a good salesman. One may 
be very religious to the very extent of being 
tiresome. One may be very profane to the ex- 
168 


THE DUTY OF EVERY GENERAL AGENT 

tent of being obnoxious, but these traits of 
nature must be tolerated if we are to build 
an agency to success. Reforms are not a part 
of our business and that man who tries to 
make his fellow man adopt his nature or his 
personal ideas, is not only wasting his val¬ 
uable time but is going back to ancient meth¬ 
ods, and these methods fail. The main object 
is to recognize ability if it is there and develop 
it. If it is not there, don’t waste time trying 
to furnish brains. But if you have a man 
with ability there is a way to develop him. 
Maybe it is through close acquaintance with 
him. Maybe it is by carefully educating him 
in the business; maybe by knowing his family 
and his acquaintances. There is some way. 
Find it. Study your man. Know his nature. 
Know his habits. Know his family, his condi¬ 
tion, his desires, his aims, his objects, and 
then find the plane on which you can get on 
common ground with him and you can develop 
him. Remember always—be patient—try 
again. Give him another life, another help. 
Try from another angle. Maybe it’s you who 
is not doing your best. Maybe you do not 
know your man as you should. I think pa¬ 
tience counts much in your personality and 
has a heap to do with your success. 


169 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 


IN LOCAL CONDITIONS WE FIND EDUCATION 

In the northern part of France there is a 
country called Brittany. The people of this 
country are plain, uneducated fisher folk, en¬ 
gaged in deep sea fishing. The country is a 
barren, rocky coast land. The waves of the 
ocean constantly dash against its rocky coast 
with such force that there is at all times a 
barrage of mist along the coast. It is said 
that there is not a home in all this state which 
does not mourn the loss of a member or a rela¬ 
tive in the recent war. The people are earnest, 
simple people. Out of this war has grown a 
custom of gathering on the beach in the mist. 
There they imagine that the souls of their 
loved ones who are dead are in this mist. 
They talk to them. They imagine that they 
can hear their voices. They imagine that 
they can give them messages from beyond the 
mist. The custom is an interesting one, and 
they go back home relieved and comforted. 

For the Life Insurance man in the United 
States there are just as great and interesting 
gatherings. The soul of every victim of in¬ 
fluenza calls back through the mist to the folks 
at home for more protection in life insurance. 
Every family and every member of the family 
has had impressed upon him the necessity and 
170 


THE DUTY OF EVERY GENERAL AGENT 

advantage of life insurance. In every nook 
and corner of our land we have had a plague 
which has stricken down the strongest in our 
land. Everyone has seen death in a different 
light than he ever did before. To be near 
death makes a man see correctly. Self pres¬ 
ervation is the first law of nature. Protection 
for one’s self and those dependent upon him is 
one form of self preservation. The epidemic 
of influenza with all its ravages and all its toll 
of human life has been a great educator for 
Life Insurance. Human sympathy is the ele¬ 
ment which makes one individual touch el¬ 
bows with another human being. It is the 
quality which enables the salesman to paint 
the picture which touches the heart. 

Today the material for human sympathy 
pictures is greater than it ever was before. 
Every soldier who gave his life on the battle 
field of France with upturned face to the stars 
of Heaven thanked God for Government In¬ 
surance. Everyone of these thanks is a cry 
for more protection at home today. When 
that American youth said “Take care of 
mother, and I’ll go to Hell for Uncle Sam,” he 
made the greatest argument in the world for 
Life Insurance. He painted the picture which 
would get the signature on the dotted line 
every time,—unless there be in the back- 
171 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 


ground a mother, no portrait of man is com¬ 
plete. Boys, don’t fail to use your brushes 
today. Paint pictures. Make them so vivid 
that the prospect will see himself as he is, and 
will see Life Insurance for what it will do, and 
especially for what it will do for him. We all 
have our day dreams. We all see big pictures 
in our dream mirror, where we are drunk on 
art, love, dope, or business, but the man who 
puts his picture on canvas and sells it to Col. 
Pierpont Morgan, for the big dollar, is the 
only one who is really IT. 


172 


ENTHUSIASM IN OUR BUSINESS 






CHAPTER VI 

Enthusiasm in Our Business 

To BE the largest kind of success in our 
business what do we need more than anything 
else? If I had only one choice I should select 
enthusiasm. Why? Because the fire of it 
and the earnestness it engenders, overcomes 
more obstacles than anything else. We can 
by main strength and awkwardness in most 
any kind of work, obtain a certain degree of 
success, but we must pass the dead line. We 
must move up into the clouds before we really 
taste success. 

I am an optimist and I am a great believer 
in good healthy dreams, dreams which 
broaden your vision, dreams which make you 
see a structure finished and inhabited, which 
lay out before you in perspective all you live 
for. I admire the boy who dreams of living 
in the house with the Golden Windows even 
though they are no better than the windows of 
his own little hut, his vision has been broad¬ 
ened and he is better off. I admire the agent 
who dreams of the big business; who in that 
dream sees an agency rise on the foundation 
he is laying; see it rise up and up until it 


175 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

fairly towers over everything else in the com¬ 
munity ; sees himself grow along with it until 
he is one of the big men in the locality. A man 
owes it to himself, to his family and to his 
children, to be just as big a man as he pos¬ 
sibly can. To do this he must be earnest and 
he must be enthusiastic. Mere knowledge will 
not carry one to success. But reasonable 
knowledge with earnestness and enthusiasm 
will level all the mountains in the pathway to 
permanent success. It takes earnestness and 
enthusiasm to make success. 

Why do we go into the Life Insurance 
business? For the same reason that we en¬ 
gage in the banking business, for the same 
reason that we become lawyers, for the same 
reason that we become doctors, for the same 
reason that we take up commercial lines—to 
make money. Let’s say to make a living. In 
this business which we have chosen as our 
profession, we find ourselves with no stock of 
goods on the shelf, with no banking house to 
which people throng, but we have what all 
need, the estates which they are seeking to 
create. By offering these estates just in an 
average way, we make a living, but most of us 
are not satisfied with just a mere living. How 
are we to get more? Until the water gets up 
to 212 degrees there will be no steam in the 
176 


ENTHUSIASM IN OUR BUSINESS 


boiler, but from that degree on there is a force 
generated, the most powerful force known. 
What we need is to go past the 212 degrees. 
We need to move. We need to generate power 
and make that power carry us to success. 

Too many persons look upon success as a 
sort of Santa Claus, that drops presents into 
your stockings while you sleep. Well, success 
does not behave that way. He is a hard per¬ 
son to catch, and just as hard to hold after he 
is caught. If you have ambition you want to 
see people and have them see and know you. 
Don’t go about this business in which you are 
engaged as if business was all a joke. It is a 
serious life you are spending here on earth 
and you must be earnest about it. To reach 
the goal which will brand you as one who has 
done a little better than the average you must 
hustle a little faster than the other fellow and 
you must realize that you can go faster. No 
matter how high you have gone, your success 
has not carried you as far as you can go. 
What do I mean? Just this. We in the life 
insurance business must make veritable dyna¬ 
mos of ourselves if we would go forward. 
Human beings like force and energy and sin¬ 
cerity. All of these traits are contagious and 
make us friends and get us business. Go into 
a community and write ten applications and 
177 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURATTCE 

everybody knows about it and wants to boost 
for you. Why? Because they look at you as 
a success. Deliver ten policies in any locality 
and if they do not produce you ten more you 
have not done your duty. You have not been 
fired with that enthusiasm which makes two 
blades of grass grow where one grew before. 

Enthusiasm and earnestness—What is it? 
Let me tell you by illustration. 

In 1837 two boys entered Faneuil Hall and 
heard Wendell Phillips’ great defense of 
Lovejoy. One youth was an English visitor 
who saw the portraits of Otis and Hancock on 
the walls,—yet saw them not; who heard the 
words of Phillips, yet heard them not because 
his heart was in London and felt not the 
American patriotism. But the blood of Adams 
was in the veins of the other youth. He 
thought of Samuel Adams, who heard the 
firing at Lexington and exclaimed: ^What a 
glorious morning this is.” He thought of 
John Adams and his love of liberty. He 
thought of Old Man Eloquence, John Quincy 
Adams, and as he listened to the words of the 
speaker, tears filled his eyes and pride filled 
his soul. It was his native land. With his 
heart he believed in patriotism. It was a part 
of his very seif. 


178 


ENTHUSIASM IN OUR BUSINESS 


Insurance is your profession. The best in 
the world. Make it a part of yourself so that 
you can feel it as this youth felt his patriot¬ 
ism, and then you can make others feel as 
you do. 

I believe in having at all times a real en¬ 
thusiasm about your business—the kind that 
is a part of yourself. Make your business so 
much a part of your very self that every time 
you shake hands with a man, be he friend or 
foe, be he prospect or not, that he will say 
“Well, there’s a man I am glad to know.” 
Have so much enthusiasm that every time you 
take a man by the hand at least an electric 
spark of yourself will permeate him and make 
a desire to at some time sign an application 
for you. Get that great desire to do the won¬ 
derful good of insuring the life of a human 
being for the benefit of other human beings. 
In all the world there is no thrill like it. 

We all like contests and feats of strength. 
But have you ever seen any that thrilled you 
half so much as conquering an applicant who 
fought you hard against giving you his name 
on the application? We are all thrilled at a 
horse race when thoroughbred is raced 
against thoroughbred, for every ounce of their 
worth. But is this half so thrilling as to de¬ 
feat an opposing agent in a race for the life 
179 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

of a human being as an insurance risk? In 
all the world there is not such a fascinating 
business as ours. And to succeed in it is honor 
and glory enough for anyone. I would not ex¬ 
change it for any other business or profession 
on earth. 

Did you ever hear a real old fashioned, 
sincere southern preacher at a camp meeting 
or revival? He is the best example I know of 
what a Life Insurance man should do today. 
First he has his sermon to deliver but he de¬ 
livers it with an earnestness and an enthusi¬ 
asm which makes people think, which touches 
every fiber of their human makeup, and it 
makes them act. Energy? Yes, a plenty of 
it. Earnestness? The most in the world. 
Dramatic delivery? Maybe. But what’s the 
difference if it gets results? 

The Life Insurance man today has more 
material at his command for use in an earnest 
enthusiastic sale of business than ever before. 
Then what do you owe to yourself? You owe 
it to your family to make the most money you 
can and you owe it to yourself to make the 
most you can of yourself. Double your work 
and see what the results will be. It won’t hurt 
you one bit, but you will be pleased. You have 
in your hands the goods to sell. But for good- 


180 


ENTHUSIASM IN OUR BUSINESS 


ness sake, don’t try to sell them in a half¬ 
hearted way. Be earnest. Be enthusiastic. 
Be a success, whom others know as a success, 
and then your family will be prouder of you 
than they are of the neighbor next door. 


181 












PLANS FOR EDUCATING THE AGENT 


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CHAPTER VII 

Plans fob Educating the Agent 

For a long time Life Insurance Salesman¬ 
ship was in a very deep rut. But we are proud 
of the great progress that has been made in 
the past ten years not only in Life Insurance 
Salesmanship, but every other kind of Sales¬ 
manship. The time is past when a life insur¬ 
ance company can fail to cooperate with its 
sales force and make progress. We all can 
remember the time when it was the proper 
thing to contract with just as many men as 
possible no matter who they were, give them 
a rate book and supplies and wish them well, 
sending them out to write all the life insur¬ 
ance they could in any way that they could. 
Those were the days and the times when our 
business did not have the splendid reputation 
that it has today. This method of hiring 
agents and sending them forth to represent 
the company was very largely responsible for 
that condition. There are a few old fogy 
companies yet who are following this practice 
but they are so few that they are not worth 
mentioning. 

The agent is no longer set adrift without 
knowledge of the business he represents or 
185 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

without knowledge of his company, its poli¬ 
cies, and the goods he has to sell; but he is 
given every assistance and every cooperation 
that can be given. The companies now real¬ 
ize that it is an asset to place their business on 
a higher plane, that it is a very big asset to 
have the good will of the people on whom they 
depend for business. Consequently, every 
agent who represents the company must be a 
man who will give credit to his company and 
be a credit to the business. He must be 
educated. 

We realize today that the secret of achieve¬ 
ment is to be able to bring the whole man to 
the day’s work; not a lop-sided man; not a 
half educated man using only a part of his 
ability and energy but a whole man with a 
purpose in life and a goal for his aim. We 
have very often seen a fruit grower cut off 
half of the branches of a tree in order to make 
it develop and grow better and bear better 
fruit, and it is very often necessary for a com¬ 
pany to cut out one half a man’s ideas in order 
to have him concentrate and be a real success¬ 
ful life insurance salesman. We all realize to¬ 
day that it takes concentration to sell, that it 
takes knowledge of the goods, and above all 
that it takes right methods which are rapidly 
coming about by the system of education 
186 


EDUCATING THE AGENT 

adopted by the particular company, by that 
training which brings its agents fully up to a 
standard and its sales arguments to creditable 
canvasses. 

For a year we have had a course in Life 
Insurance and Salesmanship and when we de¬ 
cided to put on this course we made it a re¬ 
quirement that every full time man must take 
it. It is a course conducted by correspond¬ 
ence, having twelve lessons covering three 
months. We established a minimum passing 
grade of 70% and have conducted it on a very 
rigid basis. A lesson is sent to the agent each 
week with an examination paper which must 
be returned by the end of the following week. 
It is then rigidly graded and a report given 
him upon his paper accompanied by the cor¬ 
rect answers to all of the questions. The 
questions are so framed that the student must 
necessarily make a careful study of the lesson 
in order to give the proper answer. A copy of 
the grading of the paper is sent to the General 
Agency in which the student belongs so that 
he too is kept informed of the progress of the 
student. If he falls below 70% in his general 
average he must take the Course over again. 
If he fails to take the Course his contract is 
canceled. We realized that to make this a 
high class Course it must be rigid and could 
187 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

not be slip-shod and wishy-washy. Conse¬ 
quently, we have been very well pleased with 
our results. During this time we have had 
512 agents enrolled for the course of which 
284 have graduated and 228 have been 
dropped. These were very largely part time 
men. We allowed wide latitude in taking the 
Course at the beginning. This means that 
56% of the enrolled, including part time men, 
have gone through and graduated. The aver¬ 
age grade has been 88.4%. 

As I stated before we are very well pleaded 
with the results of our Course. We can see 
that it has strengthened our agency forces, 
and it has strengthened the General Agents 
themselves. It has standardized our canvass, 
it has helped many men to organize their 
thoughts and ideas and their knowledge of the 
business and apply them successfully. We do 
not employ experienced life insurance men. 
That is, we do not take men from other com¬ 
panies. In our whole agency force as it exists 
today there are only five men who have had 
previous life insurance experience. We take 
men from other lines and train them in our 
work. So we realized in making this Course 
of ours that it must be purely a Peoria Life 
Course. It must be simple and plain to under¬ 
stand. It must not contain too much of the 


188 


EDUCATING THE AGENT 

technical side of the business and yet it must 
give sufficient knowledge to educate the agent 
in the business. 

For many years before we had this Course 
it was our plan to take a new agent and sit 
down with him and for several days give him 
instructions in the business, tell him what 
he would want to know about the life insur¬ 
ance business. We always found in hiring a 
man from other lines that he would say— 
‘^Now I don’t know a thing about the life in¬ 
surance business,” and we would say to him 
that that was in his favor, that it was our 
business to teach him the business and we 
would proceed to do so. We sought to make 
our Course cover just what we had been in the 
habit of telling to men personally. Before we 
had this Course, after we had instructed our 
men, we made it a requirement that, if he 
worked under a General Agency, the General 
Agent himself or some one for him must take 
that man and personally train him in the field 
for several weeks until he was a success in the 
business. If he worked from our office we 
would do the same thing from there. We 
maintained three men on salaries for training 
these men, and I am glad to say that we were 
satisfied with results. Since we have had this 
Course we still maintain the same rule that 


189 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

the new man started must not be left to drift 
alone but must be given assistance in selling 
until he is successful. We follow the same 
plan so far as field training is concerned that 
we did before we established the Course, but 
we make the agent study the things that we 
set down in our Course, which now takes the 
place of the personal talking. 

The time which determines whether the 
agent will be a success or a failure is the first 
few weeks of his work when the empty days 
come around, when the blue days visit him, 
when he has the days when he cannot make a 
sale or get a successful interview, and dis¬ 
couragement comes. If he is left alone with 
all these things, he will soon be out of the busi¬ 
ness, and that is what we try to guard against. 
We do not hesitate to tell a man that he is not 
fitted for the life insurance business if we be¬ 
lieve that he will not be a success. We do not 
hesitate to make a very thorough and careful 
investigation of the prospective agent, and 
tell him that we are doing so. We want him 
to know that he must be our kind of a man 
before we will take him into our agency force, 
and we want him to understand when he does 
come into our agency force that he is coming 
into one Big Happy Family of Successful 
Men, who cooperate for each other’s interests. 

190 


EDUCATING THE AGENT 


The time was when it was up to the man to 
make good but now we believe that it is the 
Company’s duty to investigate every man be¬ 
fore he goes with them and satisfy themselves 
whether he is the kind of a man they want and 
who will be creditable to the business. If he is 
not then tell him so and refuse to contract 
with him. But if he is a man with whom the 
contract is made then the responsibility of his 
success shifts from him to the Company and 
it is the Company’s duty to see that he makes 
a success in the business, which can only be 
done by properly training him and giving him 
the personal assistance which will make him a 
successful life insurance salesman. 

The education the new man wants is sim¬ 
ple, it is not technical information. He wants 
to know something about the institution of 
life insurance; he wants to know what the in¬ 
stitution stands for and what it does; he 
wants to know its responsibilities; he wants to 
know about the particular company he repre¬ 
sents and its history and its methods; he 
wants to know what service his company 
gives. He wants to know how it treats its pol¬ 
icyholders and beneficiaries, and he wants to 
know if it is prompt in its methods or if it is 
old fogy. In other words, he wants to know 
whether it is alive or dead. He wants to know 


191 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

that they are cooperating with him and he 
wants to know the correct and quickest meth¬ 
ods of selling its policies and to that end he 
must correctly understand the policies. The 
company should realize all this and never for 
one moment forget that the agent is the com¬ 
pany in his particular locality, that the 
agent’s reputation is the company’s reputa¬ 
tion, and that his methods are the company’s 
methods. 

The education and training which a com¬ 
pany should give to its agent is just what an 
individual would sit down and tell to the man 
if he had the time to talk to him, just what he 
would tell him about the company and its poli¬ 
cies and the institution of life insurance. 
Every man who enters the employ of a com¬ 
pany in selling life insurance must have 
knowledge about what he is selling before he 
can have confidence in himself. It is, there¬ 
fore, the duty of the company to give each 
agent this knowledge and training about the 
business and about his particular company. 
Not so much that he must use that knowledge 
but that he will gain the self confidence that 
will banish his fear and enable him to be a 
successful salesman in the field. 

We have found that a Sales Course estab¬ 
lishes a standard for our agents in their work. 

192 


EDUCATING THE AGENT 

We have found that it necessarily weeds out 
the undesirable and the weak ones and that it 
raises the standard of our business. We have 
also found that it corrects false ideas in the 
agent, that it gives him reliable, accurate in¬ 
formation and makes him really know that he 
can hold himself out as an adviser on the sub¬ 
ject of life insurance to any and everybody in 
his community. We have found that it cor¬ 
rects one sided men and makes them strong 
and successful and that it standardizes our 
canvasses because in our Course we have 
dwelt with particular emphasis on the can¬ 
vass on our own policies. We have also found 
that it makes our agents more permanent be¬ 
cause throughout this Course we impress 
upon them the bigness and importance of life 
insurance. We have found that through this 
Sales Course we can make our agents get 
closer to their policyholders and thereby estab¬ 
lish a better good will for the business and for 
our particular Company. We recognize that 
the good will of our policyholders and of the 
insuring public is the biggest asset our Com¬ 
pany can have. 

We have found as a result of our Sales¬ 
manship Course that it teaches the agent how 
to study and what to read. When a young man 
goes to a university and comes out graduated 
193 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

he is not a successful man but has learned how 
to study the particular profession for which 
he is preparing himself. His success in the 
world when he begins to practice his profes¬ 
sion is in proportion to how well he has 
learned to study and how he applies himself 
in that study. This same thing is accom¬ 
plished in our Salesmanship Course. We do 
not stop with the Course itself but suggest a 
course of reading for the student. Maybe he 
will not read all that we suggest but he 
usually reads a good part of it and that gives 
him just that much better knowledge. Th-en 
the everyday practice of what he has studied 
for three months gives him the practical 
knowledge and makes him bigger and stron¬ 
ger. We can teach him through this Course 
to have more initiative. We can teach him 
how better to observe human nature and take 
on more tact and diplomacy in his work. We 
can teach him the human side and the senti¬ 
ment in connection with the life insurance 
business. We can teach him all of these 
which broaden him and make him a better and 
bigger man. 

When we put out this Course and made it 
a requirement for every full time man to take 
and pass the examinations, we came up 
against some objections from some of our old 
194 


EDUCATING THE AGENT 

men, not many, because most of them were 
eager for the opportunity to take it. But we 
would occasionally find that old man who 
knew that he had gone through the old school 
of experience and that he knew about all that 
was necessary for any man to know in the life 
insurance business. But we required him to 
take it just the same, with the result that we 
found that these old men had forgotten the 
elementary principles of life insurance and 
were overlooking its very rudiments which 
appeal to the layman in the selling of a policy. 
They had let their canvass grow stale and 
were passing over the little but most impor¬ 
tant things. They had grown so accustomed 
to set forms of selling that their canvass very 
often would not give the prospect that in¬ 
formation which would make a good solid sale 
and keep the business on the books. It is like 
the old engineer who gets so used to running 
his engine that he gets careless and he is the 
one who has the accident. 

The school of experience is a fine one for 
anyone. We cannot deny that. It is neces¬ 
sary and yet without any assistance in any 
other way it is a very costly school. We be¬ 
lieve that when a new agent is secured he 
should be given an idea of what life insurance 
really means, of its functions and service to 
195 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 


widows; in helping to feed, clothe and educate 
little children, and in making old age happy 
and comfortaljle. He should be taught the 
mission of a life insurance company; he 
should be told what the law requires of a life 
insurance company, making it the safest and 
most solid institution in the world. He should 
be taught and instructed in the company’s 
policies and should be told of the company’s 
investments. If these ideas are rightly pre¬ 
sented they will make a right minded new 
agent want to do two things—first, to go to 
work with the shortest possible delay, and sec¬ 
ond, while he works he will want to learn all 
he can about life insurance and what it will do 
and what he can do in that business. He will 
get a vision of his own importance in life in¬ 
surance and in the business world and that 
vision will place him second to none in the im¬ 
portant professions of the world. 


196 


CONTAGIOUS OPTIMISM 




CHAPTER VIII 
Contagious Optimism 

One rainy afternoon two years ago, a half 
dozen men and women sought shelter on the 
steps of a bank in the outskirts of Chicago. 
They had merely stopped there to get out of 
the rain. A little boy going home from school 
told his mother that several people were on the 
bank steps trying to get into the bank. In 
that bank was the little sum of savings of the 
family. The mother immediately became 
frightened and told the information to her 
neighbors and it began to spread. In a little 
while a great crowd was gathering around 
the bank and the story going that it had 
failed. This happened during a time of pros¬ 
perity when the bank was in the very best of 
condition. It opened its doors the next morn¬ 
ing as usual and a great stream of people 
surged in and many withdrew their money. 
It caused the bank a great deal of annoyance 
before the story was proven to he false. This 
is how contagion spreads among the Amer¬ 
ican people. 

The business of the United States is done 
on faith and credit. It is just as solid as it can 
199 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 


be and yet this faith and credit in human be¬ 
ings is the most stable part of even the bank¬ 
ing business. We have all seen individuals 
with plenty of money to back them, with a 
good business venture, and yet we have seen 
them make a tee-total failure because they did 
not have the faith and confidence of the people 
with whom they had to do business. Today a 
bank is organized in our community. It has 
$100,000.00 of capital stock. That capital is 
all paid in. It is ready to do business. People 
come in and the bank loans this same $100,- 
000.00 or their capital and takes notes for the 
money loaned and the bank gives a pass book 
with credit for the amount of money bor¬ 
rowed. Right then the bank has resources of 
the $100,000.00 capital, $100,000.00 of loans, 
a total of $200,000.00, and yet no money has 
changed hands. The bank is perfectly solid 
and in good condition. Someone buys a few 
shares of the stock and a few live wires begin 
to boost for deposits, and in a little while we 
find that the bank has a good reputation, is 
growing steadily, and at the end of the year 
has paid a dividend. Then everybody wants 
to buy the bank’s stock because it has been 
built up, its credit and its good will have been 
extended to the point of making its stock 
valuable. 


200 


CONTAGIOUS OPTIMISM 


Every kind of a business institution in the 
United States, if it builds at all, builds on its 
good will more than on its money, because it 
must have customers, it must have patrons in 
order to have business out of which it can 
make profits. This good will and this patron¬ 
age must come before the profits and before 
success has come. 

We received the news over the wires one 
day that the United States had declared war 
with Germany. Just as soon as that news was 
flashed and just as soon as it reached the indi¬ 
vidual American, his blood began to tingle and 
he had a desire to protect his country and 
thousands on thousands of men gave up their 
vocations, gave up their businesses and went 
forward for the protection and in defense of 
their country. This was the contagion of 
patriotism. We saw this same contagion 
spread and keep on spreading until the last 
gun was fired in the greatest war the world 
has ever known. We saw it continue to spread 
over this country until the biggest men in the 
country entirely gave up their business and 
went to work for the Government, for their 
country because of this contagion of patriot¬ 
ism : patriotism, which is a very part of the 
body and soul of the American people, and yet 
201 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

it spread just like any other contagion spread 
and made us win the war. 

Someone told us that we must close up our 
offices one day in the week, close up our busi¬ 
nesses in order that we might save fuel to help 
in winning the war. This was done without a 
complaint. It caused great sacrifices to busi¬ 
ness and yet it was done purely out of the con¬ 
tagion of patriotism. 

Have you ever attended a Revival Meet¬ 
ing? I mean a real, southern Revival Meet¬ 
ing? If you haven’t you don’t know what 
suggestion from one human being to another 
means. If you have never had this experience 
you never have felt the effect that the thrill 
and action of one human being has on an¬ 
other. If you have never seen a great congre¬ 
gation of people absolutely go into hysterics 
almost to a person as a part of their religious 
exercises, then you have never seen a real 
Southern Revival Meeting. And what is this? 
Nothing more or less than the contagion of the 
religious devotion which these people have 
made. One time in the backwoods of eastern 
Kentucky, I attended such a Revival Meeting. 
It had been going on for two days and the 
proper enthusiasm had not arrived, although 
the minister and all persons in charge had 
worked very hard to accomplish their desired 
202 


CONTAGIOUS OPTIMISM 

results. In the afternoon of the second day, 
there came a moment when everything was 
very quiet. A little boy was standing on a 
seat so that he stood up above the crowd. He 
was not more than 12 years old and in this 
moment of stillness he held out a handkerchief 
in his hand and dropped it, saying, “That is 
the way you will drop into hell if you don’t 
change your ways.” It is needless to say that 
the enthusiasm arrived immediately. There 
were probably five thousand people in that 
audience and I think nine-tenths of them were 
in hysterics in less than five minutes. They 
continued so for the rest of that day until they 
absolutely wore themselves out. This was 
pure contagion that had been engendered by 
this little boy just at the proper time. It had 
its effect on the great audience of men and 
women, who were mature in their years and 
in their experience. We may say that all this 
is foolishness, does not amount to anything, 
and yet it is a strong mind and an iron will 
that is not affected by the enthusiasm and the 
hysterics which come from a scene of this 
kind. 

The Society of this country is built en¬ 
tirely upon faith—faith in human beings. 
Today a person is the idol of the American 
people and he continues to be so as long as they 
203 


A VISION OP LIFE INSURANCE 

have faith in him. When the faith is gone, then 
the idol is gone. In this country this faith of 
Society goes by epidemics, just as much as does 
disease; just as surely and just as much as did 
the great epidemic of influenza sweep over 
this country a few years ago. If today it was 
announced that gold had been discovered in 
Nebraska, the trains could not carry the peo¬ 
ple who would be on their way there within 
twenty-four hours. Someone begins on the 
Board of Trade to buy grain and the price im¬ 
mediately goes up. Not because the grain is 
any more valuable, not because there has been 
one single cent of value added to it, not be¬ 
cause the demand is any greater than it was 
the day before, but some person started to buy 
grain and paid a larger price and kept on in¬ 
creasing the price. We have seen grain go by 
leaps and bounds until it reached figures 
never heard of before. Then someone began 
to bid lower and prices began to go down. We 
have seen them go down just as rapidly as 
they went up. Pure contagion—that is all 
that you can call it. If faith is in the saddle, 
then things go in great shape. If faith is de¬ 
throned and pessimism steps in, then we go 
down just as rapidly as we went up. 

Every person here has during the past 
three years known of a piece of real estate in 
204 


CONTAGIOUS OPTIMISM 

his locality which someone had for sale and it 
would not sell until after he had made a trans¬ 
fer of this property to someone and let it get 
noised about that he had sold for such and 
such a figure. Maybe in a day or so it was 
transferred again at a higher figure and then 
the demand was on. We have seen this same 
piece of real estate actually sell to persons 
who paid their money for it at two or three 
times the original value of it. Now there is 
nothing in the world in that but the contagion 
that has been manufactured by someone. The 
value was not increased. Not a nickel was 
added to the actual value of the property but 
people were made to believe that they wanted 
that piece of property and they bought it. 

Probably the darkest day for England 
during the recent war was that time when the 
head of the Bank of England called in Lloyd 
George and asked him whether or not they 
should honor certain very great demands for 
munitions which were made upon the bank for 
that day. And he said, “If we do not honor 
these certificates our credit will be gone and 
we cannot open our doors tomorrow. If we 
do honor them and pay them, we will pay out 
more than the bank has as its resources and 
we shall have to have assistance from other 
sources to do so.” Lloyd George said, “Can 
205 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

we get the assistance?’^ Bonar Law, head of 
the bank, replied, ^We can.” Lloyd George 
said, ^‘Then pay them.” And they did pay 
them and the faith and credit of the Bank of 
England stood the test. In a few days they 
had worked out until they had conditions in 
better shape, and so the crisis was past. And 
yet only the few people at the head of the Na¬ 
tion knew the crisis that they were then going 
through. 

Some few years before the recent war, 
Woodrow Wilson, then President of the Unit¬ 
ed States, caused to be established the Fed¬ 
eral Reserve Banks. Twelve of these banks 
were located in different parts of the United 
States to stabilize the currency and financial 
system and to direct and control the banking 
conditions of the country. These banks op¬ 
erated all through the war with such a flexible 
system of financing that we went through that 
period in a way that is creditable to the Na¬ 
tion and which brought her through in better 
condition than any other nation, better even 
than those who planned the system ever 
thought that she could come through. 

Just as soon as the Armistice was signed, 
we all thought: ‘^Now is the time when some¬ 
thing is going to happen,” and it did hap¬ 
pen. Things went down, great factories had 
206 


CONTAGIOUS OPTIMISM 

nothing to do, people were thrown out of em¬ 
ployment, but very quickly did this condition 
right itself and we had following in just a lit¬ 
tle while a very great era of prosperity. We 
all said, ‘Well, the readjustment period must 
come some of these days—prices are up, all 
kinds of things are on a different level than 
they ever were before, and they must get 
back.’^ We knew it would come—and it did 
come. Prices began to go down and they con¬ 
tinued to go down. Prices on farm products, 
prices on manufactured products and every¬ 
thing in the country have been and will be af¬ 
fected before it is over because that is the only 
way we can have a readjustment. We expect¬ 
ed the condition—we longed for it to come and 
when it got here we were very sorry that we 
had it. But we must remember that when 
prices soared skyward, that every person in 
this country who was affected, stood the test. 
If he did not have the money with which to 
buy the article at the increased price, he went 
out and earned it and paid the price. The 
average American citizen during this period 
spent all of his money like a drunken sailor. 
He did not count the cost. He did not figure 
that there would be a time when conditions 
would change. He was not contented with the 
usual things on his table, but he must have 
207 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

strawberries in January and every other arti¬ 
cle out of season, no matter what the cost. We 
must remember that during that period this 
country and her financial system came 
through without a scratch, that from the 
twelve centers of the Federal Reserve Banks 
in the United States, we have seen the bank¬ 
ing business and financial business of this 
country equalized and stabilized. 

Now you ask what all this has got to do 
with the life insurance business. It has every¬ 
thing in the world to do with the life insur¬ 
ance business and the life insurance man. 
How have the past few years affected life in¬ 
surance? They have taken the little life in¬ 
surance man, and, mind you, I said little 
intentionally, and caught him in their grip. 
He has gotten right into the panic—has come 
to the conclusion that the country is all going 
to ruin and that he canT write any life insur¬ 
ance. He does not want to work very hard 
anyhow and he has let this get on his mind 
until he is so affected by it that he cannot pro¬ 
duce business. In other words, the chief effect 
that this condition has had on the life insur¬ 
ance man has been in his own mind. Now 
some of you are going to take exception to this 
statement because of the fact that it has been 
hard to dispose of notes. It has been hard to 
208 


CONTAGIOUS OPTIMISM 


get cash settlements. It has been hard to col¬ 
lect renewal premiums. These are absolute 
facts. All that has occurred and every one of 
those things occur in different localities in the 
very best of times. But let me tell you what 
has happened during that same period. We 
have had two particular instances which have 
very aptly illustrated this situation. We have 
had two men of equal ability, as near as I can 
judge, working in the same locality, and as 
nearly in the same conditions as I could imag¬ 
ine. One of them during a given period was 
right on his toes all the time with that true 
Peoria Life enthusiasm which made him know 
that he could sell business, and he went out 
and sold over $100,000.00 of business in a lit¬ 
tle less than six weeks. The other man, who 
was equally as good a salesman, who was just 
as strong a man, was bit by the bug of pes¬ 
simism and went around over his territory 
with his head down, with himself in no condi¬ 
tion to make any canvass and bewailing the 
hard times. I looked at his record and for the 
same period in which this other man had sold 
$100,000.00 of business, this man had sold 
exactly $27,000.00 and it wasn’t paid for. 

Now there is the situation as it stands. 
We had a man just recently who told me how 
hard it was for him to get business in his local- 
209 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

ity. He told me how he thought the life 
insurance man was going to starve to death 
and he went into conditions at great length, 
telling me all about the hard times that had 
struck him and everybody else. It gave me a 
great deal of pleasure to show that man that 
a neighbor agent of his was making as much 
money today and turning it into cash as he 
had ever made in the past two or three years, 
and I went into conditions thoroughly with 
him to the effect that he agreed to change his 
attitude and go out with his head up, with an 
optimistic view of things. Since that time 
he has never failed to write as much business 
as he ever wrote in any of his good weeks. 

Just a little while ago, as a fine illustra¬ 
tion, I was in the office of a wholesale concern. 
The sales manager was talking to a prospec¬ 
tive agent and he was telling him how hard 
conditions were, how hard money was to get, 
and how the traveling men were having aw¬ 
fully hard times. The man that he was talk¬ 
ing to was a man of ability and he had just 
recently sold at a good profit a little business 
that he had been conducting for some time. It 
is needless to say that the salesmanager did 
not hire him. After he had gone, I said to him, 
'Tou didn’t expect to hire that man, did you?” 
and he said, ^Why no, I am not hiring any 
210 


CONTAGIOUS OPTIMISM 

men these days. I can^t interest them. I have 
tried as hard as any man ever tried and I 
can’t get men interested in coming with us in 
the last two months.” I said, 'Well, if any 
man ever came to you on the argument you 
were giving this man, he would surely be an 
idiot or a man who had nothing else to do,” 
and I told him why. We have a live life in¬ 
surance agency in the city of Peoria and two 
days after that time this very person whom 
this salesmanager was talking to had been 
added to its forces. He had been impressed 
with the great opportunity in the life insur¬ 
ance business at the present time, and the first 
week he made over $200.00. 

The man who can work in the blue air of 
pessimism and get any place is not worth hav¬ 
ing around. If I could not have a feeling of 
optimism in any business in which I was 
working, I could not accomplish any results 
and I would not try it very long, and I believe 
that is the average human nature. A man 
may be the worst pessimist in the world and 
yet every single thing that he accomplishes is 
done through what little optimism sifts 
through his blue vision. Now you just stop 
and think a few minutes and see if that isn’t 
the case. Let us just grant for the sake of 
argument that conditions in this country are 
211 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

just as blue and just as bad as the worst pes¬ 
simist we have has ever painted them. What 
then is the duty of the life insurance man? 
Should he be a quitter? Should he do like the 
ostrich—hide his head in the sand and forget 
all about things until the storm blows over? 
Must he run away from conditions and let 
them work themselves out? During the war 
we called that kind of a person a slacker. It 
is conceded by the Government, by the busi¬ 
ness men of the United States and by the peo¬ 
ple generally, that the life insurance salesman 
is today the highest type of salesman there is. 
We don’t hear a banker talking about the 
banks of this country having such an awfully 
hard time. We don’t hear the merchants tell¬ 
ing about the failures and hard times of their 
particular business. But we do hear people 
telling of the good things that they do, of the 
good times they expect, of expected conditions 
as they see them. And the life insurance man 
has a duty greater than all of them,—a duty 
to go about his community and spread opti¬ 
mism during this particular time, optimism 
which will bring him business and build his 
agency. It will do so just as surely as he gets 
that optimism and it will bring in business just 
in the proportion that he gets that optimism. 

212 


CONTAGIOUS OPTIMISM 

How are you going to get it? You should 
get it by thinking this situation out for your¬ 
self. Think out this system in the light of 
being protected by the greatest Government 
on the face of the earth, whose financial and 
business system is today the very highest that 
has ever existed in the world, with machinery 
which is working like clockwork, which is 
bringing this country back to its normal con¬ 
dition, months, yes, years, ahead of the time 
that any of us predicted that it ever could get 
back, and doing all this without harm and 
very little inconvenience to the different busi¬ 
nesses of the country. You should think out 
these things in the light of the conditions as 
they are and you can come to only one conclu¬ 
sion if you do this and that is that this country 
is going to come through this situation just 
like it has come through the others for the 
past five or six years, with credit to herself, 
to her businesses, and to her people. If you 
can’t think it out for yourself in this way, or 
if someone isn’t kind enough to think it out for 
you and tell you, then in some way go out and 
manufacture your own optimism. Take it 
upon yourself as your duty, and it is your 
duty, to tell the people of the good times that 
there are coming. Build your life insurance 
business upon the business optimism that is 
213 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

coming. The life insurance man can do this 
better than any other person in the country 
and his efforts will be more far-reaching than 
any other man. Let me tell you why. 

You are the State Agents. You go back 
to your state and you have twenty-five 
agencies in different localities in the state. 
You first get the proper optimism yourself, 
the proper enthusiasm, and you go out to 
every one of those agencies and instill in them 
the optimism you have, start them out on their 
mission of getting more business in their 
chosen profession, and teach them the optim¬ 
ism that will bring results. They go out to 
any sub-agents which they may have and do 
the same thing and every one of you go out to 
the public, to the business men, to the bank¬ 
ers, to every individual that you come in con¬ 
tact with and spread this same optimism and 
it goes like wildfire. Sunshine will kill more 
disease germs than any other medicine that 
has ever been discovered. Sunshine has come 
nearer curing the incurable diseases than any 
other treatment. So will the sunshine of opti¬ 
mism dispell all of the gloom of this present 
situation if you will just let it do so. But you 
do have to take down the blinds. You do have 
to let the sunshine in. You do have to raise 
the curtains so that the sunshine will get to 
214 


CONTAGIOUS OPTIMISM 

the places where it will do the good. If you do 
this there is no question about results. Opti¬ 
mism is just as contagious as the measles, as 
the influenza,—just as contagious as the spirit 
which prevails at a Revival Meeting. It is 
just as contagious as any kind of a report that 
gets started that carries people into a panic. 
The life insurance man is certainly losing his 
one great opportunity every day he does not 
seize this situation and increase his business 
as he should, by spreading good contagious 
optimism throughout his entire territory and 
make it affect every individual with whom he 
comes in contact. 

COURAGE IS NEEDED AT THE PRESENT TIME 

There is no question in anyone's mind to¬ 
day but that mental suggestion plays a most 
important part in our business world. Every 
modern business takes this into consideration. 
A department store pays handsome sums to 
window decorators who can suggest to the 
public the things they should buy. It pays the 
firm to do this. Enormous sums are spent in 
advertising to suggest things that we should 
buy. Yes, further than this, enormous sums 
are paid in illustrating these same advertise¬ 
ments so that they will make more forcible 
suggestions to us and cause us to buy. 

215 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 


The life insurance man should suggest 
optimism today. He should do this without 
any question. First, because it is the right 
thing to do; second, because there is every rea¬ 
son to believe that we have just ahead of us 
the best period of real prosperity that this 
country Tias ever had, with the greatest crops 
that it has ever produced, with all other things 
in good condition. No thinking person can 
long believe that the present little stringency 
will have any permanent effect on our busi¬ 
ness world. So all that the life insurance man 
needs to do to accomplish the greatest good 
that he can for himself and at the same time 
accomplish the greatest good that he can for 
his country and for the business world gen¬ 
erally, is to have the courage to go forwardl 
with his optimistic views and spread them in 
such a way that they will get results. He must 
have persistency in doing this. It is a fact 
that he is going to run up against the blue in¬ 
dividual who will tell him all about how 
things are going to ruin, but then is his oppor¬ 
tunity to show that individual the true light of 
the sunshine of optimism. 

The insurance man must have confidence 
in himself as well as confidence in the present 
condition. He must not be affected by any 
arguments contrary to optimism. The spread- 
216 


CONTAGIOUS OPTIMISM 

ing of this gospel of optimism will be just as 
contagious with you as an individual as it will 
be with a crowd of people. Within a very lit¬ 
tle while you will find that it is growing in 
you and you will like it. Just as the sunshine 
makes the plants grow and thrive, you will 
find yourself getting stronger and that this 
will be a kind of self discipline that will pro¬ 
duce initiative in you. You will soon discover 
yourself forging ahead and meeting situa¬ 
tions in a way that you never dreamed of be¬ 
fore. You will also notice that everybody else 
will soon begin to help you. They will boost 
for you. They will boost your proposition. In 
other words, people like to help a successful 
man and they like to help him be a success. So 
if you accomplish nothing more than to make 
of yourself a successful optimist, with more 
initiative than you had before on account of 
your discipline, that initiative will bring you 
more business than you can get in any other 
way. It is a fact, and we must all admit it, 
that our mental attitude has more to do with 
our success than any other single factor. If 
we do not have our feelings in the task we are 
doing, we cannot accomplish very much. If 
we do not put our whole self, body and soul, 
into our proposition, then the fellow just 
217 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

ahead of us, or just behind us, who does do 
this, outstrips us in our records. 

There is no class of salesman in the whole 
country that is in such an enviable position 
today as the life insurance salesman and there 
are several things to prove this. One is that 
during the past three years he came into his 
own more surely, more securely, than he ever 
could have done in any other manner. He 
placed for his Government as much life insur¬ 
ance on our soldiers and sailors as all of the 
companies in the country had on their books 
at that time. He did it without a penny of 
profit to himself or a penny of cost to the Gov¬ 
ernment. This much he did. When the great 
epidemic of influenza came on, he poured into 
the laps of needy beneficiaries, through life 
insurance policies, more than $200,000,000. 
This was the contribution of life insurance to 
the greatest plague in the world. This much 
he did then. During all the period of the war 
he did his share and a little more. Whether it 
be on the field of battle, or in the munition fac¬ 
tories, or in other work, the life insurance man 
was creditable to himself and to his profession. 
This much he did of which we are extremely 
proud. There is something else that the life 
insurance man did since the war began. In 
our own Companies the life insurance man 
218 


CONTAGIOUS OPTIMISM 

has created more than $25,000,000,000.00 of 
life insurance estates and there is not one 
word of criticism on his sales. There is not one 
breath of suspicion or graft. The Govern¬ 
ment told us that 1920 was a year unprece¬ 
dented for sales of fake articles. Everything 
from worthless oil stock down to moth balls to 
help your gasoline, was sold to the public. The 
salesmen who made these sales are dodging 
the people who bought, they can’t face them. 
They dare not look them squarely in the eye. 
Yet the life insurance man meets every person 
for whom he has created a life insurance 
estate, and meets him as a friend. He goes 
into his home as a friend. He is welcome at 
all times as the best friend of the insured and 
the best friend of his family. The Govern¬ 
ment told us that during 1920 fraudulent sales 
robbed the people of the United States of over 
$500,000,000.00, yet the life insurance man is 
not included in a single one of these fraudu¬ 
lent sales. The life insurance man through 
the period of the war and up to the present 
time has not a single regret for his actions and 
his business. He has no excuses to make. He 
owes not a single apology to anyone. He 
stands today as the man who has the confi¬ 
dence of the American people and why should 
not he be optimistic? In this country whose 
219 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 


resources are greater than any other in the 
world, whose 105,000,000 of people are united 
for success under the greatest Government 
and the greatest financial system that was 
ever created, he needs only to have the courage 
and the faith which naturally belongs to him 
to be optimistic today to the extent of being 
successful. He has no capital tied up. He has 
no merchandise which he must unload. He 
has no regrets for the sales that he has made. 

He knows that every one of them are worth 
one hundred cents on the dollar and that the 
good that he has done is greater than any other 
class of salesman in the world. If the life in¬ 
surance man cannot be optimistic, if he cannot 
realize the true position of his profession to¬ 
day, then he has not seen the true vision of life 
insurance. He has not seen the good that it i 
does. He has not seen the true building of an 
agency. He has not seen the life insurance 
company as the perpetual institution that goes 
on and on through the ages, doing greater 
good than any other institution, whose busi¬ 
ness is so interwoven with the very Govern¬ 
ment itself that it could not be discontinued or 
lifted out of the Government without destroy¬ 
ing its very existence. 


220 


THE VALUE OF A HUMAN LIFE 





CHAPTER IX 

The Value of a Human Life 


The Creator laid out a wonderful scheme 
for humanity, one that is fair and equitable 
to every person. In this scheme He gave to 
every person the same amount of time, and it 
is the most valuable asset that the human life 
has. To the entire human race time is the 
standard of value, and by the value of time is 
measured the value of everything else. The 
Bible tells us that man’s allotted time is three 
score and ten years, and actual experience as 
set down in our records has proven very con¬ 
clusively that this is the correct statement. 
The actuaries of life insurance companies 
compiling the statistics in regard to this mor¬ 
tality conclude that the last life of a group will 
be ended at age ninety-six. Many persons die 
young. The tubercular age is from twenty- 
five to thirty-seven; pneumonia has no respect 
for age, and people die at any age from this 
great cause; while heart trouble and kidney 
trouble attack people past middle age. Many 
people live past their allotted time and so it 
averages up, and when we strike the average 
we find that the Bible’s statement is about 


223 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

correct. If every person is allotted the same 
amount of time to begin with that is one ele¬ 
ment that enters into the value of a life. 

We cannot say that every person is created 
equal in brains and ability. With a splendid 
opportunity but with no ambition one person 
will make a failure, another person with half 
the ability and no opportunity makes a place 
in the world that is enviable. The ability to 
carry on business and to make something out 
of the life that is given to every person is an¬ 
other element that enters into the value of a 
life. What he can earn, what occupation he 
has chosen, and just what is the record of the 
people in that occupation, to what station in 
life he has attained, also enter into this same 
principle in figuring out the value of a life. 

The family of the individual whose life is 
to be valued and those dependent upon him 
also constitute an element to be taken into con¬ 
sideration in valuing a life. 

The interest value of money is another ele¬ 
ment that must be taken into consideration in 
valuing a life. It does not change and fluc¬ 
tuate as does the interest of commercial paper, 
but it can more properly be an assumed rate 
of say 5%. 


224 


THE VALUE OF A HUMAN LIFE 

Then we may set down as the six principal 
things which enter into the Value of a Human 
Life as: 

1. Time. 

2. Age of individual. 

3. Ability and Occupation. 

4. Family of Individual. 

5. Station in Life. 

6. Rate of Interest. 

EVERY LIFE HAS A VALUE 

Every life has a value no matter who he 
is or where he is. Then you may ask yourself 
the question, “Is the ditch digger’s life worth 
as much as the great financier?” To his fam¬ 
ily, yes. Because from their standpoint he is 
their support and maintenance. He is their 
protector and guardian just exactly the same 
as the rich man is to his family. One family 
lives on one plane and the other one lives on a 
different one. But in figuring out the value 
of the life of each of these persons the same 
value would not be obtained. But the unit of 
our American Government and of this Nation 
is the family, and the value of an individual is 
his worth in the family. The head of one 
family may earn $15.00 a week and in sup¬ 
porting and maintaining his family on that 
salary he is just as valuable to them as any 
225 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 


man who earns a million a year. In arriving 
at the value of a life we will have to disregard 
the value to society other than the value of the 
individual in the family circle as the unit of 
our Government. 

There is no law fixing the value of a life, 
but every state does have personal injury laws 
which limit the amount of money that can be 
recovered from an employer for the death of 
an employee in his service, and that limit is 
usually fixed at $10,000.00. This does not 
mean that for the death of every person there 
should be paid $10,000.00, but it does mean 
that that is the maximum which can be recov¬ 
ered in personal injury suit for his death. 
Many of these laws do not attempt to limit the 
amount of recovery for any personal injury 
which does not result in death and in many in¬ 
stances recoveries for a great deal more than 
the maximum which is fixed as a death claim, 
have been received for personal injuries. The 
states having Workmen’s Compensation Laws 
have fixed amounts to be recovered for the in¬ 
juries which do not result in death as well as 
for the amount to be paid for death. Most of 
these laws have as the maximum for death, 
$10,000.00. In the trial of cases of this char¬ 
acter in the states which do not have compen¬ 
sation laws, it is a general practice to show 
226 


THE VALUE OF A HUMAN LIFE 


the position in life of the dead person, to show 
what his earning capacity was, what was his 
contribution to his family, and to show his age 
and his expectation of life. In doing this, they 
were getting right down to a life insurance 
basis, and attempting, of course, to show the 
amount of money necessary to have in one sum 
to earn an amount of interest equal to the con¬ 
tribution to the family by the deceased. As an 
example, it would take $10,000.00 in the prin¬ 
cipal sum to earn $600.00 a year at 6% in¬ 
terest, but figured for a definite period of the 
man’s expectancy it would take a less sum to 
carry out the amount and furnish the $600.00 
income for his entire expectancy. 

When the Government during the recent 
war established the Government Insurance for 
soldiers and sailors, which grew to such enor¬ 
mous proportions in such a short time, the 
maximum amount of a policy was fixed at 
$10,000.00. The disability of soldiers and 
sailors was provided for under the Disability 
Act, which was passed at the same time but 
which was not the insurance act itself, on 
about the same basis of $10,000.00, according 
to the family of the insured. The soldier paid 
for his life insurance policy, but the Govern¬ 
ment furnished the disability free of charge. 

So far as we can ascertain from the pro- 
227 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

visions of the laws, then, the value of a life 
may be said to be about $10,000.00. This 
amount is entirely inadequate as a sum for a 
man whose earning capacity is $50,000.00 or 
$100,000.00 a year. On the same principle it 
might be too large for the man who earns 
$15.00 a week or less than $1,000 per year, 
and yet the value of a working man to his 
family is greater than the value of the wealthy 
man to his family, because of the difference in 
their station in life and the difference in finan¬ 
cial distress which his death would cause to 
his poor family. We have been told at differ¬ 
ent times that the proper way to figure the 
value of a life is to figure it on the exact basis 
a person would figure the value of a building. 
If a building would earn $1200.00 per year 
after the deduction of taxes, repairs, insur¬ 
ance, and expenses of upkeep, then that 
$1200.00 is the net income from the property 
and its value would then be based on an inter¬ 
est calculation. If 6% interest was taken as 
the basis of calculation, the building would be 
figured to be worth a total sum which would 
bring in $1200.00 interest, or the total value 
would be $20,000.00. There is one difficulty 
in figuring on that basis. The owner of the 
building knows that there is just a 12% chance 
of his building burning down since there is a 
228 


THE VALUE OF A HUMAN LIFE 

fire in only 12 out of every 100 buildings in¬ 
sured. But the human being who is insured 
knows that he will die. There is absolutely no 
question about it and the company will be 
called upon to pay his policy. We are assum¬ 
ing, of course, that he keeps up his premiums 
and the policy is kept in force. Figuring on 
this basis the poorer man could not afford to 
carry $20,000.00 of life insurance because his 
earning capacity would not permit him to pay 
for it. On the other hand, this amount of in¬ 
surance would be entirely too low for the 
wealthy man and he could carry a great deal 
larger sum of insurance than that. If the 
wealthy man has an earning capacity of $25,- 
000.00 per year, on the same basis of figuring, 
his life insurance policy should be about 
$400,000.00. 

If a mathematician was called upon to tell 
us the value of a life he would first want to 
know the age and the yearly income of the 
person to be valued. If he was thirty-five 
years of age and his income was $1200.00 he 
would go immediately to the American Expe¬ 
rience Table and find out that his expectancy 
of life is thirty-two years. Then he would 
turn to his Compound Discount Table, and 
find that the present value of $1.00 for 32 
years at 5% is $15.80. He would multiply 
229 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

this $15.80 by $1200.00 and would thereby 
give you the present value of a man thirty-five 
years of age. This value which he would give 
you would be $18,960. This is what the man 
of figures would give you, but as you get fur¬ 
ther along in the life insurance business, you 
will find that this is not the proper basis on 
which to make the calculation, because certain 
adjustments have to be made for condition in 
life and the amounts of disbursements which 
are fixed and the condition of the person’s 
family, etc. 

But let us look just a little bit further at 
the value of a life from just a little different 
angle. The average life on which all calcula¬ 
tions are made is age thirty-five. This is the 
half way place of the three score and ten years. 
It is on this age that the average insurance 
calculations are made. 

Now that we have taken the cold blooded 
facts in regard to the value of a life let us 
analyze some of the actual conditions which 
will give us a great deal of light on this sub¬ 
ject. We have told you that every life has an 
insurance value, whether it be the life of the 
capitalist or the business man who makes the 
great amount of money, or whether it be the 
individual who works at day labor in the 
street. Each one of them has an insurance 


230 


THE VALUE OF A HUMAN LIFE 

value, but the principal basis of estimating the 
value of a human life is the value of that life 
to the person’s family. If a person has 
reached a certain station in life and maintains 
his family in that condition, giving to them 
certain privileges and enjoyment, he should 
be so fixed that at his death they may continue 
in the same station in life to which he has 
brought them. It is on this basis that the 
value of a life can be figured and arrived at 
at a pretty satisfactory conclusion. 

Just glance back through your own history 
and think of the family which has been bereft 
of the head of the family and what their con¬ 
dition was, also think of similar instances in 
your own experience. About the first question 
that is asked when a person dies is “How 
much insurance did he leave; what kind of an 
estate has he?”—and if he has been a success¬ 
ful man an estate has been left so that his fam¬ 
ily can go on in the same station of life in 
which he has educated them to live. In the 
schools there are students getting their educa¬ 
tion because Daddy looked ahead and provided 
for the contingency of his death. The mother 
at home is glad to get the letters which breathe 
the spirit of youth and of college, and she 
blesses the memory of her husband because he 
provided for his own; because he recognized 
231 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 


the condition of things in life that make it an 
obligation on the parent to provide for the 
education of his children. There are students 
in the various schools who are there because 
the head of the family who has gone to his last 
reward carried sufficient life insurance to pay 
off the mortgage on the farm and by paying 
it off with this money which he had provided, 
the family was permitted to go on and give the 
children their education. Some children are 
in school because the father provided a 
monthly income from life insurance to take 
care of their education; and other students are 
because the father had protected his business 
by sufficient life insurance so that at his death 
the business would not be destroyed. Many a 
partnership is a very agreeable one so long as 
both partners are alive, but possibly the busi¬ 
ness is so divided up that one man takes care 
of the inside work and the other the outside, 
and the death of either one of them means dis¬ 
aster to the concern, and in turn this disaster 
carries back to the family or the individual. 
Life insurance plays such an important part 
in all of the affairs of business of this country 
that it is as impossible to separate it from 
the transactions of our Nation’s affairs as it 
is to eliminate the banking business. 


232 


THE VALUE OF A HUMAN LIFE 

Many years ago the life insurance man 
who went through the country trying to sell 
life insurance was looked upon as the man who 
had failed in everything else and had taken 
up the life insurance business as a last resort. 
Conditions have changed in this regard today 
and have been changed for many years. The 
life insurance business is now the largest busi¬ 
ness in the world, and the United States 
stands in the forefront as having the best and 
largest life insurance system in any nation. 
It is so great in this country of ours that with 
the assets of the life insurance companies 
could be purchased every bank in the United 
States and have some two billions of dollars 
left. The value of the railroad property of 
this country is something like twenty-five bil¬ 
lions of dollars; the total banking resources 
are about twenty-five billions of dollars; the 
total manufacturing products of the country 
are about twenty-eight billions of dollars; and 
the total life insurance of the country, exclu¬ 
sive of Government insurance, is about thirty- 
five billions of dollars. This is how the life 
insurance business compares with any other 
business in the country. And the life insur¬ 
ance man as he represents this great institu¬ 
tion has long since taken his place as one of the 
most important factors in the country. His 
233 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

is one of the best professions of today. You 
will find him standing alongside the lawyer, 
the doctor, the banker, and the minister, and 
none of them doing a bigger, a better, or a 
more commendable and profitable work than 
is he. It is his business to see to it that the 
homes of our land are protected; to see that 
the individual creates a sufficient estate; to 
see that every person provides for the last 
years of their lives so that they will not be in 
want and in misery and despair. It is his 
business to try to increase and benefit the 
social conditions we have today which write 
down in front of our eyes in figures of fire 
that 60% of our boys and girls of this country 
fail to get a High School education; they tell 
us that out of every 20 persons 19 fail to pro¬ 
vide either for their old age or for their fami¬ 
lies at their death; that over eight millions of 
women in the United States must work to 
make a living; that 90% of the estates of over 
$5,000.00 are dissipated in seven years. These 
are the figures that the life insurance man is 
trying to decrease as he works from day to day 
trying to protect the homes of our land. In 
the past 25 years life insurance has decreased 
the pauperism of this country 33 1/3%, and 
today life insurance saves the Nation more 
than thirty millions a year in maintaining the 
234 


THE VALUE OF A HUMAN LIFE 

poor and seven-eighths of all of the money left 
in estates is derived from life insurance. 

I am giving you these figures not so much 
to show you the value of a life but to show 
you the conditions which surround each life, 
and to show you the conditions which today 
must be taken into consideration because I am 
talking to you about the insurance value of 
a life. There is a simple calculation that you 
can make for yourself that will give you about 
the value of the average American life. Sup¬ 
pose we assume that we have an average 
American family consisting of five persons— 
the husband, wife, and three children— 
and let us assume that the husband and 
wife are of equal age; suppose they were 
married at age 23; suppose the three 
children were born when they were at age 
24, 25, and 26; suppose they owned their 
own home so that they had no rent to pay; 
then suppose that the husband has a position 
which pays him $1200 per year and that he 
had that salary from the time of their mar¬ 
riage up to the time of his death. Let us dis¬ 
regard the question of change in salary or the 
increase in living expenses. Suppose when 
the husband was thirty-five years of age he 
died. The $1200 income from his salary is 
gone and that $1200 for his expectancy of life 
235 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

is about his value. The widow has the usual 
ambition of wanting her children to have a 
good education. She wants them to have just 
as good a chance as the neighbors’ children. 
Johnnie, the oldest child, is eleven years old; 
William is ten and Mary is nine. They are 
all in the common school and she can get along 
on a small amount until the oldest child starts 
to High School. Then the expenses will in¬ 
crease a little bit and the next year the second 
child will go to High School, and the next year 
the third child will be going to High School, 
and each time the expenses will be increased a 
little and possibly the last year of High School 
she finds the expenses increased at least 
$100.00 for the year more than they were be¬ 
fore, and mind you I am figuring minimum ex¬ 
penses and not average or maximum, and we 
are not making any allowances for illness and 
doctor’s bills. When Johnnie gets through 
High School his mother is determined that he 
must have a college education, and they figure 
out that he can go through school for about 
$600.00 a year. He goes to school. This has 
added $600.00 to her expenses of about 
$1000.00, making $1600.00, and the next year 
William goes to college, adding another 
$600.00. This makes $1800.00 of expenses for 
education alone, and the best that you can 
236 


THE VALUE OF A HUMAN LIFE 

figure is that each of these children will go to 
school four years and come out when they are 
twenty-two years of age. When Johnnie 
comes out of school his mother is forty-six 
years old, the next year forty-seven, and the 
next year forty-eight. She has then spent a 
considerable sum of money for the education 
of her children; and what we are interested in 
now at the end of this calculation is—what 
could the father have done for the mother’s 
or his children’s sake to have kept them in the 
same station of life to which he had brought 
them—that was his obligation to them? The 
answer is his value in life. He could have left 
enough money to discharge this obligation and 
that would have meant about $25,000 cash, 
and then the contingency of bad investments 
and losses of it would have to have been con¬ 
sidered. But life insurance has this figured 
out on a better basis. A life insurance policy 
of $18,500 payable in monthly installments is 
just about enough to maintain this little fam¬ 
ily until the children received their education, 
because it would pay them $100 per month or 
$1200 for 20 years, the same as the husband’s 
salary while he was living. If you will figure 
that out, you will find that in the early years 
at the lowest minimum cost the mother could 
have saved a little bit of money and then she 
237 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 


would have gone considerably into debt to fur¬ 
nish the college education, but she would have 
had a few years left out of which she could just 
about have paid back the borrowed money. So 
by this kind of a simple calculation which you 
can make yourself you can demonstrate that 
the value of the head of an average American 
family at the age of thirty-five is about $18, 
500. This you must remember cuts off all the 
frills, all the enjoyment, and all the education 
and does not take into consideration the con¬ 
tingencies of illness and doctor’s bills. The 
value of the life of the head of the family is 
that sum which will take his place and keep 
the family in the same station in life until the 
children arrive at an age when their own earn¬ 
ing capacity will maintain the family in that 
same station. In other words, it is that sum 
that is necessary to bridge the gap between the 
termination of his earnings and the beginning 
of the earnings of the children. 

Every kind of property has a value and a 
value which is recognized, and man, who is 
most important of all, should have a recog¬ 
nized value. Every person knows and protects 
his property against loss by fire, and they 
know that there are just twelve chances in a 
hundred that there will be a fire in the build¬ 
ing. But every person knows that just so sure 
238 


THE VALUE OF A HUMAN LIFE 

as he was born just so sure will he die, and 
that every life insurance policy placed upon 
an individual is absolutely sure of becoming a 
claim. 

There is another element that now enters 
into the value of a life, not so much into the 
actual value of a life as to the shrinkage of 
the estate which he may leave, and that is in¬ 
heritance tax. This is comparatively a new 
proposition in which the Government steps in 
at the death of a person and says to the wife or 
beneficiary: ‘^You must not dispose of your 
house or property or money until you have 
paid to the Government a certain per cent of 
the inheritance tax on the estate left. This 
must be paid in cash and must be paid at 
once.’’ Many persons’ estates are carried on 
and operated in kinds of property that will not 
permit them to be turned into ready cash with¬ 
out a great loss. Probably it is the very best 
kind of land, if it is and some of it has to be 
sold to pay the inheritance tax the present con¬ 
ditions and prices of land would make a very 
great loss in doing so. Therefore, it is a recog¬ 
nized fact today that life insurance provides 
about the only means of providing ready 
money with which to pay inheritance taxes. 
Business men do not carry on hand large sums 
in cash. Mr. Wool worth, who built up the 
239 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 


greatest chain of five and ten cent stores in 
this country, out of which he made so much 
money and was able to build the greatest office 
building in the world—the Woolworth Build¬ 
ing—was a man who did not believe in life 
insurance and carried none. He owned one of 
the finest homes on Fifth Avenue in New York 
City, in which his family lived, but at his death 
he did not have on hand sufficient cash with 
which to pay his inheritance tax. It was nec¬ 
essary to sell this beautiful home on Fifth 
Avenue to pay the tax. Today it is not only 
necessary for the individual to figure what he 
ought to have for his family, the value of his 
life, but it is further necessary that he provide 
some means of this inheritance coming into 
their hands without deduction. In other words 
every person must figure on inheritance tax 
and the prompt payment of it as affecting his 
estate. 

James Stillman, a New York multimillion¬ 
aire, died recently and left an estate valued at 
forty million dollars and because there was 
not ready money to take care of the inherit¬ 
ance taxes, the net amount of this estate which 
went to his beneficiary was twenty-four mil¬ 
lion dollars, in other words the estate stood 
sixteen million dollars of losses in taking care 
of his taxes. 


240 


THE VALUE OF A HUMAN LIFE 

SHRINKAGE OF ESTATES 

One of the most convincing examples of the 
need for insurance to cover inheritance taxes 
is provided in the estate of the late James 
Stillman, multimillionaire of New York. The 
gross value of Mr. Stillman’s estate was $40,- 
338,121 but when the tax collectors had fin¬ 
ished their raid the net estate amounted only 
to $24,287,639. Detailed figures showing just 
how the Stillman estate shrank have been 
compiled by the ‘^Boston News Bureau.” 
These figures show that over 40 per cent of 
the estate was used up in taxes and expenses 
which had to be met in cash within a short 
time after Mr. Stillman’s death. The table 


referred to is as follows: 

Value of gross estate.$40,338,121 

Federal state tax. 10,822,255 

State inheritance tax. New York. 1,381,451 

State inheritance tax. New Jersey. 55,918 

State inheritance tax, Utah. 23,900 

State inheritance tax. West Virginia.... 21,139 

State inheritance tax, Illinois. 16,337 

State inheritance tax, California. 10,198 

State inheritance tax, Texas. 9,258 

State inheritance tax, Wisconsin. 8,339 

State inheritance tax, Michigan. 3,611 

State inheritance tax, Maine. 1,342 

State inheritance tax, Montana. 136 

State inheritance tax, Kentucky. 115 

State inheritance tax, Minnesota. 52 

241 
















A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 


State inheritance tax, Arizona. 33 

State inheritance tax, Tennessee. 19 

State inheritance tax, Colorado. 16 


Total inheritance taxes.$12,354,238 


Administration and accounting.$ 2,887,098 

Income tax. 825,349 

Real estate tax. New York State. 33,795 


Total deductions (40.2%).$16,050,482 

Net estate. 24,287,639 


From time to time during the past year or 
so other examples of the need for life insur¬ 
ance to provide cash in the settlement of big 
estates have been provided in a number of in¬ 
stances. It is a familiar fact that the Wool- 
worth estate was obliged to mortgage the fa¬ 
mous Woolworth Building in New York to pay 
inheritance taxes. 

Even more striking is the peculiar expe¬ 
rience of the estate of Frank A. Sayles, a 
wealthy man of Pawtucket, R. I., who recently 
passed away leaving a fortune of $70,000,000. 
The estate was so invested, however, that the 
executors were unable to raise $10,000,000 of 
Federal taxes levied against it and in conse¬ 
quence have been compelled to apply to the leg¬ 
islature of Rhode Island to pass a special bill 
242 














THE VALUE OF A HUMAN LIFE 

empowering them to borrow money to meet 
these taxes. 

Still another example of the shrinkage of 
estates is provided in the case of the late 
Henry C. Frick, the coke and steel magnate of 
Pittsburgh. It will be recalled that in his will 
Mr. Frick left approximately $50,000,000 to 
various charitable and educational institu¬ 
tions and it now develops that not more than 
$20,000,000 is available for this purpose be¬ 
cause of the shrinkage in the value of securi¬ 
ties and the demand from numerous sources 
for taxes. One of Mr. Frick’s beneficiaries 
was Princeton University, which was left 
$15,000,000 by his will, but because of the 
shrinkage in the estate the trustees of the Uni¬ 
versity have been advised that only $6,000,000 
of the total bequeathed can be paid. 

WHERE WILL YOU BE AT SIXTY-FIVE? 

Perhaps people who are in the prime of life 
have never given very serious thought about 
their later years, have never asked themselves 
the question “Where will I be at sixty-five?” 
It might benefit you a great deal if you would 
ask yourselves this question today and study 
out the answer and satisfy yourself on a sched¬ 
ule of life which you can work and which you 
will work out if you decide to do so. 

243 


A VISION OF LIFE INSUEANCE 

Here is what the statistics issued by the 
Government tell us about age sixty-five: Out 
of a hundred persons twenty-five years of age 
when they reach the age of sixty-five here is 
where they will be: 

36 will be dead 

5 will be well off 

6 will be- self-supporting 

53 will be dependent on relatives. 

This means that this life is a “survival of 
the fittest.” It means that it takes ambition 
and planning and energy in order to rise up 
above the average of your fellow man and 
make yourself worth while in life. This is the 
record that makes life insurance a necessary 
part of our Government. This record shows 
more clearly than I can tell you the mission of 
the life insurance man. This record tells you 
that time, of which every one has exactly the 
same number of hours, is the most important 
asset you will ever have. If you go to the bank 
and borrow five hundred dollars for ninety 
days, the bank charges you seven dollars and a 
half. What do they charge it for? For the 
five hundred dollars? No, that is not what it 
is for, it is for the ninety days’ time. The five 
hundred dollars is not yours, the money still 
244 


THE VALUE OF A HUMAN LIFE 

belongs to the bank and the charge is made for 
the use of the ninety days’ time. 

To determine the value of a human life you 
can do so in cold blooded figures as I have 
shown you at an average age of thirty-five by 
making a simple calculation which will prove 
to you that $18,500 is about the average value 
of a life and by the consideration of other 
features surrounding the present day condi¬ 
tions you can satisfy yourself that these fig¬ 
ures are about correct. You must always keep 
in mind that there are three distinct stages of 
life—one is the early years of childhood when 
the individual has small earning capacity; 
there are the active years of business life; and 
there is old age. We can get through child¬ 
hood because some one owes us an obligation 
to help us to exiot. It is up to us whether we 
make good in the best years of our life, and 
upon the question of whether we have made 
good and provided for the contingencies of life 
depends on how we spend the later years of it. 
Of course, the state has provided charitable 
institutions which take care of those who are 
destitute, but no person wants to spend the 
last fifteen years of his life in an alms¬ 
house. No person likes to have a relative do 
this. If the value of a life has been properly 
conceived this will be avoided. That is the 
245 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

message of the life insurance man. It is one 
thing to estimate the value of a life, but an en¬ 
tirely different one to induce the individual to 
create that value. The object of every man is 
to create an estate, to leave an inheritance to 
those dependent on him, to do something and 
be something in the world. When we think 
about the homes all over our land we know that 
the home is the unit on which our Government 
is founded. In the home we find the maximum 
strength of our Nation. It is in the home that 
the power of our Government begins and it is 
in the home that its responsibility ends. The 
strength of our Government is in the home— 
your home, and my home—the home that is 
made up of individuals. If one of those indi¬ 
viduals fails to make good it breaks the chain 
or makes it weaker. Then you and I and 
others with ambition must do his share. And 
it is in the same proportion that the individual 
of the home fails to make good that it is nec¬ 
essary for the other individuals to make good, 
to do so in a bigger way that they may off-set, 
and by their contribution help to carry on the 
delinquent ones. If over this entire land of 
ours we could correctly know the value of the 
human life, and if it could be impressed upon 
every person the necessity of providing and 
maintaining that value, we would have an 
246 


THE VALUE OF A HUMAN LIFE 


ideal country free from want, free from hun¬ 
ger and free from destitution which makes 
homes so sad. This condition probably never 
will exist, but life insurance is doing its part 
to help the Nation take better care of the 
Value of Every Human Life. 


247 






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RIGHTS, DUTIES AND PRIVILEGES 
IN AN OFFICE 



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CHAPTER X 


Rights, Duties and Privileges in an Office 

A FEW days ago an accommodating insur¬ 
ance company sent me two copies of the Dec¬ 
laration of Independence. It was so neat and 
attractive and was gotten up in such nice form 
that the first thing I did was to sit down and 
read it through carefully. I have read it prob¬ 
ably a hundred times. The next thing I did 
was to send one copy to my son who knows it 
almost by heart, and the next thing that I did 
was to send the other copy out here and had it 
tacked up for you. How many of you have 
read the Declaration of Independence and 
know the gems that it contains? How many 
of you have studied it and realize the great 
truths that it expresses? There are more im¬ 
portant things expressed in this little docu¬ 
ment which covers one small page than in any 
other document that bears on human events. 

Bear in mind that this Declaration of Inde¬ 
pendence was made many many years ago 
when the conditions were not all the same as 
they are today. The document was prompted 
by the oppressions that had been imposed upon 
251 


A VISION OF LIFE INSUEANCE 

the people for years until they had become un¬ 
bearable. The first Declaration expresses the 
principle that if we are to do an act even as 
momentous as this was, “a decent respect of 
the opinion of mankind requires that they 
should declare the causes which impel them.” 
In other words, they believe that they should 
find that all of their operations be at all times 
open and above board, square and honest in 
all of their dealings. These colonies had stood 
the hardships and impositions and privations 
which had been imposed upon them by Great 
Britain and her king until they decided that it 
was time to throw off the yoke and cast aside 
these burdens and stand forth a nation among 
the countries of the world. In doing this they 
deemed it their solemn duty to declare why 
they were doing so and hence their first dec¬ 
laration. It has ever been a good principle in 
business and is today to the persons who follow 
this declaration both in private life and public 
business. They find themselves getting into 
less entanglements than they otherwise would. 

The next declaration was that all men are 
created equal. All are entitled to the same 
chance and the same purposes to strive for the 
goals to which humans aspire. That has ever 
been the one great principle by which men 
have been guided in the United States. We 
252 


RIGHTS, DUTIES, PRIVILEGES IN AN OFFICE 

may not all be Presidents of the United States, 
but we do know that the Giver of all things has 
placed his hand on the head of a poor boy and 
made him the chief magistrate of a nation. 
We know that from every doorway in our 
land, no matter how humble, there is a path¬ 
way that leads to fame and that along its 
course have traveled many of our most illus¬ 
trious men to high and exalted positions in the 
nation and business world. There is no caste 
in the United States to this day. 

When Andrew Carnegie needed a person 
to perform a most important work and fill a 
most important position in his great steel 
company, he chose for that duty his poor water 
boy and gave him a better job, and Charlie 
Schwab kept on climbing until today he heads 
the steel industries of the United States and 
was during the war at the head of the Govern¬ 
ment shipbuilding interests which he imme¬ 
diately speeded up after his appointment to 
that job until it surpassed all records so that 
we were not only handling our commerce and 
the great supplies for the millions of our men 
in France, but were providing transportation 
over seas for a quarter of a million men each 
month. We all can rise by our efforts and ac¬ 
cording to our ability and our application of 
that ability to the work we have in hand. The 
253 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

way to progress and grow is to grow out of our 
present jobs into bigger and better ones. 

The third declaration is that every person 
at the moment of his birth is endowed by the 
Creator with certain inalienable rights and 
that among these are the rights to life, liberty 
and the pursuit of happiness. They declare 
that these rights were given to us and we have 
no power to dispose of them. To do so was as 
serious a violation of the laws of our Maker as 
to degrade our own character or violate any of 
the laws of mankind. This does indeed in¬ 
clude and cover all the rights we have. We are 
entitled to live our own natural life and to do 
so in the light and sunshine of liberty and to 
spend that life in the pursuit of happiness. 
The pursuit of happiness includes all the de¬ 
cent, respectable vocations and business of 
mankind. It includes the right to own prop¬ 
erty and sell and transfer it at will. It in¬ 
cludes the privilege of doing any and all kinds 
of work and occupations not in violation of 
the law of common decency. 

When they made this declaration they told 
the oppressors that they had no right to bur¬ 
den them, no right to own them, no right to dic¬ 
tate to them. That the right to govern must 
come by the consent of the people governed and 
they then and there declared the United States 
254 


RIGHTS, DUTIES, PRIVILEGES IN AN OFFICE 

free and independent states and pledged their 
lives and fortunes and their sacred honors to 
protect her. Out of these declarations sup¬ 
ported by their solemn pledges has grown the 
greatest country in the world and from her 
soil has sprung the greatest men of the human 
race and over her people has been reared the 
most beautiful banner that ever waved as a 
country’s emblem—the Star Spangled Ban¬ 
ner. 

In the practical application of this third 
declaration we find in law that there is no 
right without a corresponding duty. If I, in 
the exercise of my pursuit of happiness, ac¬ 
quire a piece of property I owe a duty to so use 
that property as not to injure my neighbor. 
If I have a position, I must so conduct myself 
in that position that I regard the rights of all 
others. We live not unto ourselves alone, but 
are each dependent on all others in this world. 

The nation is made up of the states, each 
of which must regard the rights of all the 
other states. The state is made up of counties 
and each one of these counties must so trans¬ 
act its business that it does not infringe upon 
the rights of its neighboring counties. Every 
county is made up of townships and the town¬ 
ships are so dependent upon each other that 
they must regard the rights of each other in 
255 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

all of their actions. The township is made up 
of families and the families must so conduct 
themselves that they regard the rights of other 
families living in the township, and then to ex¬ 
tend it further, every family is made up of in¬ 
dividuals and every individual must so regard 
the rights of all the other members of that 
family that they will not transgress and 
thereby become oppressors. So we see that the 
laws that are applicable to individuals are 
equally applicable to the organizations of so¬ 
ciety. Nations pursue their happiness or their 
vocations and businesses just as does an indi¬ 
vidual and in doing so, have just as sacred a 
duty as does the individual to regard the rights 
of all other nations. All are free and equal. 
All have the same rights. It is the duty of each 
to see that all sacredly observe those rights. 
They are in duty and honor bound with just as 
much sacredness as were those individuals 
when they pledged their lives and their for¬ 
tunes and their sacred honor to defend each 
other. 

When Germany swept across Belgium who 
had in no way molested her, and wrought such 
awful devastation, every other nation had 
then a duty to stop her and right the wrong. 
It was the solemn duty which would inspire 
one of us as an individual to defend and pro- 
256 


RIGHTS, DUTIES, PRIVILEGES IN AN OFFICE 

tect another member of our family. If an in¬ 
dividual becomes an outlaw and goes forth to 
burn and kill and destroy, we punish him by 
death. If a nation commits the same crime in 
wholesale, it too should be punished by death. 
Germany killed the people of Belgium, de¬ 
prived them of their lives, their liberty, and 
pursuit of happiness. She stopped at no 
crimes—at no atrocities and no acts which 
were vile and low and inhuman. She then for¬ 
feited her right to existence. 

When the history of this war is written, 
there will be one character which will stand 
forth and live forever. Cardinal Mercier, who 
was in charge of his church in Belgium at the 
time of the invasion. He saw the atrocities 
which were inflicted upon his people. He saw 
them being murdered and every other horrible 
crime being inflicted upon them that could be 
imagined. He plead for them in vain and at 
last in the midst of the awful crimes, with 
death, destruction on every hand, he said, 
‘‘You shall not kill the soul of my people. You 
may devastate our land and even kill their 
bodies, but you shall not kill their souls,’’ and 
this declaration of his did much for Belgium 
when the people of that country were forbid¬ 
den to sing their national air, he had the words 
set to the music of the Recessional and even 


257 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 


Germany dared not invade the sanctuary of 
his church and stop his service. 

Then Belgium stood forth as a nation with 
a soul which had been assaulted by brute force. 
The United States was at that time absorbed 
in commercialism. When we entered the war 
it was our sacred duty to do so and we never 
began to win the war until the army found its 
soul. Then we were an invincible force sure 
of success. Read any account depicting the 
lives and deeds of our boys at the front and 
then tell me if our army did not find its soul. 
Read with the tears which will surely come 
into your eyes, the article in the American 
Magazine written by Abbey Flinn and tell me 
if you have any doubt about the army having 
found its soul! I believe as firmly as I stand 
here today that such an army is an inspired 
army just as sure of victory as that night fol¬ 
lows the day. 

Years ago Joan of Arc found the soul of 
the French army and enabled them to win. 
Until an army or nation finds its soul and 
realizes its purpose and its ideals, it cannot 
be impelled by the motives which will make 
it win. What has all this to do with our office 
and office force? Let me show you. We come 
here as individuals—Abound together as an of¬ 
fice force. As such we have a right to life, 
258 


RIGHTS, DUTIES, PRIVILEGES IN AN OFFICE 

liberty and the pursuit of happiness which is 
carrying on our business. As such a body, we 
must give due and sacred regard for the rights 
of all other tenants in this building and all 
other ofRce forces everywhere. This office 
itself is divided up into departments. As de¬ 
partments we must observe all the rules that 
govern the individuals and we must so conduct 
ourselves as departments that the work will 
be carried on with system and propriety. As 
individuals we live under the same Declara¬ 
tion of Independence as did our forefathers. 
We have the same rights and owe the same 
corresponding duties. There are many things 
in this office that we must observe. First, we 
would not think of giving personal violence to 
another employee. We must observe the laws 
of health and hygiene that no one else may be 
injured. We have no right to come into the 
office untidy and unclean. We have all learned 
that ^^cleanliness is next to godliness.’’ No 
matter how few our clothes may be, they can 
be clean. No matter how well clothed, our 
bodies can be clean and we owe that not only 
to ourselves but to every other employee in the 
office to keep ourselves in a condition of cleanli¬ 
ness. We have no right to dress in a way that 
is obnoxious to our policyholders coming into 
the office or to the office force in general. We 
259 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

have no right to decorate ourselves in such a 
way that it will cast reflection or odium on the 
office. 

Marshall Field’s was the first great insti¬ 
tution to lay down rules governing the dress 
and deportment of its employees. Those rules 
were very strict and extended to the dress and 
appearance and the deportment of every em¬ 
ployee of the firm. Those rules barred gaudy 
appearance caused by the excessive use of 
paints and powders and by the decorations of 
the head with superfluous hair that did not 
grow there; prohibited the use, while on duty, 
of chewing gum, and in many ways made peo¬ 
ple successful in their workings and in their 
departments. We have had very little com¬ 
plaint of our office and we have been compli¬ 
mented many times on the splendid character 
of our office force and of their deportment in 
general. 

Eight along this line, I want to read just a 
little bit from an article in the “American 
Magazine; the article is “What Pleases the 
Man Higher Up.” It is written by Samuel M. 
Felton, who was Director of Military Rail¬ 
ways and President of the Chicago and Great 
Western Railroad. I think it is one of the best 
articles I have ever read. 


260 


RIGHTS, DUTIES, PRIVILEGES IN AN OFFICE 


“A boy, or a man, who knows what he wants to 
be and who works hard and willingly, has a good 
basis to build on. But if he hasnT integrity, the man 
who is over him will pass him by and take another 
good worker whom he can triist, I don't refer merely 
to honesty in dollars and cents. Of course, that is an 
absolute essential. But there is an integrity which 
goes deeper than that. I mean fair dealing, loyal 
and honest work, plain, straightforward truthful¬ 
ness, open acknowledgment of error, no quibbling 
or equivocation. 

''Sometimes I have called a clerk into my office 
and asked him a question. Instead of saying that he 
didn't know, he would give me a haphazard answer, 
trying to cover up the fact that he didn't have the 
information I wanted. Even if I didn't know that 
he was bluffing—and I almost invariably can tell— 
I would be sure to find it out later. When that hap¬ 
pens confidence is shaken. I know I have to verify 
everything that clerk tells me. I can't depend on 
him. 

"Another boy comes into my office, and perhaps 
when I ask him something, he says, 'I don't know, 
sir, but I'll find out.' That boy is straightforward. 
If he hasn't the information, he will say so. And if 
he does give me an answer, I know I can depend on 
it. Every man in an executive or administrative 
position is obliged to depend on his subordinates. 
He is constantly giving them orders, going to them 
for detailed information. A reliable man is like a 
rock under his feet. There is no better way of mak¬ 
ing yourself invaluable to the man above you than by 
showing him that he can rely on you; that when he 
261 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 


has given you an order he doesn't have to send for 
you the next day and ask you if you have carried it 
out; that when he has called on you for certain de¬ 
tails, he can feel certain that you have given him 
the facts. 

''Right in line with this comes the enormously 
important point of accuracy. This quality of exact¬ 
ness is one of the great essentials to success, and yet 
I think its value is the least appreciated by em¬ 
ployees as a whole. If one could get a statement of 
the losses in any office due to mistakes it would be a 
startling document. 

"Carelessness in taking orders, carelessness in 
passing them on, mistakes in figures and in tran¬ 
scribing reports, slipshod filing, guessing at facts 
which should be definite and proved—there are a 
hundred daily chances to throw a mistake into the 
wheels of a business, thereby causing friction, loss 
of time, and loss of money. 

"Inaccuracy is one of the greatest sources of irri¬ 
tation to the man above you. And, on the other hand, 
scrupulous exactness is a thing he never fails to 
notice. It is the question of reliability again. To 
have a man, or boy, on whom you can absolutely de¬ 
pend is a comfort that is all too rare. To be such a 
man, or such a boy, is to be certain of attracting the 
notice of your chief. 

"I remember the case of a telegraph operator in 
my office years ago. That man never made a mis¬ 
take. His messages were invariably correctly taken, 
never a word wrong. It was on the old Panhandle 
road and I was organizing the fuel department. He 
had to take dozens of messages about shipments, and 

262 


RIGHTS, DUTIES, PRIVILEGES IN AN OFFICE 


he never got even one figure wrong. I was bound to 
notice a man like that, and I knew very well the 
value of his quality of accuracy. Because of it, I 
made him our fuel agent. Then I gave him the posi¬ 
tion of chief clerk. He made good there and I pro¬ 
moted him to be purchasing agent. At every point, 
his advance came because I knew I could depend 
absolutely on his exactness. 

cannot overstate the importance of this qual¬ 
ity, and I believe other business men will agree with 
me. It can be shown in any rank, from office boy to 
the executive himself. The boy who is always put¬ 
ting letters and papers into the wrong basket, taking 
them to the wrong department, mixing the cards of 
callers, mislaying things, getting the wrong tele¬ 
phone number, twisting the messages he receives or 
carries—such a boy, I freely admit, is certain of 'at¬ 
tracting the notice' of his employer! But it is likely 
to be a week's notice to quit. 

"When you have anything to do, do it right! If 
you have facts to get, get them straight. If you have 
orders to execute, carry them out to the letter! You 
will be giving yourself the most valuable training in 
the world. And it is pretty certain that you will find 
out the truth of the theory that if a man is faithful 
in little things he will become master over great 
things. 

"The quality of cheerfulness may seem a trivial 
thing, but I do not think it is. A man who is always 
complaining, always has some hard-luck story to 
pour into his employer's ears, is not popular with 
that employer. This may sound hard-hearted, but it 
isn't. The man who tries to get his salary raised 

263 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 


because he has six children and finds it hard to take 
care of them, is tackling his problem the wrong way. 

‘‘Men are paid not according to their necessities 
or their wishes but according to their contribution to 
a business. If a man's salary should be automat¬ 
ically increased with the increase in his family, it 
might be a good thing in the prevention of race sui¬ 
cide, but it would be irrevelant, to say the least, to 
the business itself. 

“The employee who is always figuring on some 
outside reason why he should have a salary raise, is 
wrong. If he will put into his work all the thought 
and anxiety he is devoting to wishing for that in¬ 
crease, the chances are that his work will improve 
so much that the raise will come. The man who is 
always lamenting about his need of a raise is the one 
who cannot get it in any other way. I think a decent 
employer likes to increase a man's pay. However, 
he knows there is just one legitimate reason for do¬ 
ing so, and that is for the man to deserve it. If the 
employer is wheedled or nagged into doing so, it is 
only human that he should feel an inner resentment 
toward the man who has literally got something for 
nothing out of him. As a matter of fact, everybody, 
even an executive, likes to work in an atmosphere of 
cheerfulness and content. Very likely he has trou¬ 
bles of his own. If you make bad luck, instead of 
good work, the plea for a raise, an employer knows 
you are not playing the game squarely, and he re¬ 
sents it. 

“It is with these qualities which I have named, 
that the road to success is paved. But along that 
road there are sure to be openings into bigger fields. 

264 


RIGHTS, DUTIES, PRIVILEGES IN AN OFFICE 


Once in a while, to every man and boy, there comes 
some Big Opportunity. He may not know at the 
time how big it is. But if he takes every chance that 
offers itself, he will find later that some of them 
were great factors in his advance. 

“Years ago, when I was general superintendent 
of the old Panhandle road at Pittsburgh, I was called 
one night about two o'clock and told that a big 
double track bridge just outside of town had been 
burned. By six o'clock that morning a mill nearby 
was already at work sawing timbers to replace the 
structure. I telegraphed the news of the trouble to 
the general manager, then at Columbus, and he re¬ 
ceived the message when he reached his office. He 
wired that he was sending the chief engineer down 
to help me, and the man arrived in Pittsburgh about 
seven that evening. Inside of an hour he had wired 
back to the general manager that he was returning 
by the first train, as there was nothing he could do 
to improve the work. I was only a youngster in my 
early twenties, and it did not occur to me that I was 
doing any great thing, but I found later that it had 
made a deep impression on my superiors. 

“I didn't think then, 'Now here's my chance to 
distinguish myself!' I simply saw an opportunity to 
accomplish something which seemed necessary and 
I did the best I could. But, as in the case of the 
bridge matter, I found later that the fact of my act¬ 
ing promptly and energetically had impressed the 
men above me. So I know from experience that big 
opportunities come without warning and that it pays 
to take every one that presents itself. 

“But no matter what career a boy chooses, or no 
matter in what organization a man may be, I believe 

265 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

that he will succeed if he has a definite purpose, if 
he is a hard and cheerful worker, if he is straight¬ 
forward and does not try to camouflage his mistakes 
or his inexperience, and if he can be depended on for 
absolute accuracy in his work. If you want to please 
the man higher up, that is the best formula I can 
give you.'' 

At all times we should render just as hon¬ 
est service to our employer as we render to 
ourselves and we should all the time render 
absolutely honest and strict account to our¬ 
selves. It is to ourselves that we owe the 
greatest duty. Why? Because we are given 
a right which is inalienable and that right 
charges us with our three or five talents for 
which we must give strict account. We may 
cheat our employer out of 10 or 15 or 20 min¬ 
utes or even hours, and he may tolerate it 
without complaint, but you cannot cheat your¬ 
self out of a single minute and get away 
with it. 

You always must settle at some time. 
There is always that settling day with your 
own self which comes as surely as night fol¬ 
lows day. Retribution—we pay the price. 
Maybe the pain is greater than you can stand 
when it comes and then you are a wreck along 
the pathway of life, a failure among your fel¬ 
low men. But a just and right observance of 
266 


RIGHTS, DUTIES, PRIVILEGES IN AN OFFICE 

your rights and privileges which requires of 
you a strict account of yourself and your tal¬ 
ents will make you succeed. It will make you 
progress. It will make you find yourself. 
Find your soul and then you are successful. 
When you realize your power, how happy you 
are! Have you ever enjoyed anything more 
than the sweet pleasure that comes to you 
when you know and realize that you have mas¬ 
tered something? You have overcome it? It 
is your slave—then you have found your soul. 
It is then you work for the pleasure of accom¬ 
plishment and for the love of your job. 

If every person in the office did this, every 
right of the employer and every right of the 
employees would be sacredly observed and as 
an office force we would have found our soul 
and then. Oh then! at no place would there be 
such an office nor such accomplishment of 
work done in unison and harmony of individ¬ 
uals who are free and equal by their Creator 
endowed with the inalienable rights of life, 
liberty and the pursuit of happiness. 


267 


1 


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FAITH AS A FACTOR IN SALES¬ 
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CHAPTER XI 

Faith as a Factor in Salesmanship 

It takes more than one man to make a 
sale. It takes more than mere money to make 
a sale. The chief element in a sale is the meet¬ 
ing of two minds. Unless minds meet there 
can be no sale made and the minds must meet 
on common ground. They must meet on a 
plane where they can deal fairly and honestly 
and honorably with each other. In other 
words, there must be faith before there can be 
a satisfactory sale. Man deals with the ani¬ 
mals by driving them around with mere brute 
force but he must deal with human beings dif¬ 
ferently because they have reason, because 
they have judgment, and because they can and 
do decide things for their own good. The first 
law of nature is self preservation. Therefore, 
the salesman may have the best article in the 
world and he may have all of the money needed 
to finance his project, but unless he has the 
faith and confidence of the people with whom 
he deals he can never make successful sales. 
No article, no matter how good, can be placed 
on the market so that it will stay there unless 
that article grows in the faith and confidence 
271 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

of the people the further it gets. Once it is 
established, the reputation will carry it a long 
way, but until it is established it is an unrecog¬ 
nized article and does not take with the people. 

The world has always followed the foot¬ 
steps of the man who knows where he is going. 
We have all read in the history of the Civil 
War of the great battle of Atlanta. It was in 
that battle that McPherson fell mortally 
wounded. He was the idol of the Union Army. 
The news of his death spread like lightning 
through all the troops and sent sorrow to the 
heart of every one of his soldiers. That was a 
critical moment. Then at that moment the 
whole army seemed demoralized. Their 
leader was gone. Their confidence and faith 
was gone. The man in whom they had placed 
complete faith and depended to lead them to 
victory, was gone. It was at that moment that 
General John A. Logan took up the command 
and on his furious black horse dashed down 
the line crying at the top of his voice as he 
waved his sword in the air, ‘‘McPherson and 
Revenge!^’ The soldiers who were present at 
that moment never forgot the wonderful spec¬ 
tacle of the great Logan as he rode up and 
down in front of the line, his black eyes dash¬ 
ing fire and his long black hair streaming in 
the wind, bareheaded, carrying his old slouch 
272 


FAITH AS A FACTOR IN SALESMANSHIP 

hat in one hand and his sword in the other, and 
continuing to cry: ''Boys, McPherson and Re¬ 
venge!’' The soldiers said that it made their 
blood run hot and cold to see his action. And 
it was his enthusiasm and his energy that lent 
to that situation complete confidence and 
faith, and as he went forward the soldiers fol¬ 
lowed, up into the thickest of shot and shell. 
The day was won and this act of Logan’s was 
the act of a hero but it was his judgment, yes, 
it was his timely judgment, that added the 
faith that was needed just at that time. 

It takes only an instant for people to lose 
faith which is firmly established and at the 
right time it takes only a moment to gain faith 
which will carry the day. Faith in one’s self 
and in one’s life pursuit is indispensable and 
no man can really respect himself unless he 
has faith in himself and in his chosen pursuit. 
He needs faith at the beginning of his occupa¬ 
tion so that it will carry him along through all 
of the discouragements and so that he will 
start well, and then he needs faith in himself 
and in his profession at all other times that he 
may do well. Very often do we see an indi¬ 
vidual who has lost faith in himself and has 
lost faith in humanity. It is hard to say which 
faith he has lost first but any way he suspects 
and suspicions everybody and everything. He 
273 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 


says that he has no faith in the newspapers 
and lays the morning paper down without 
reading it. He says he cannot believe its news. 
He has no faith in banks because some bank 
failed at one time. He has no faith in men and 
so he declines to do business with them lest he 
be cheated, and when the entire score is gone 
over, he has no faith in anything. That man 
is just beginning to slip back into a failure. He 
is just beginning to get far enough back that 
there isnT a chance in the world for him to re¬ 
cover. He then begins to whine about himself 
and about his chances for making good and be¬ 
wails the fact that he has no chance. This 
then is the old story of the world owing the 
man a living. It has been proven long ages 
ago that it does not owe any man a living, but 
it only owes him a chance and a place to work. 

It is very sad to see a young man in a posi¬ 
tion of this kind without ambition, without 
faith, without the confidence that will carry 
him along because we expect the young man 
to continue to go forward. We expect him to 
attempt such feats as building a bridge to the 
moon. We expect him to look on the bright 
and sunny side of life and look for the better 
qualities in all individuals with whom he 
comes in contact, because it is out of this ma¬ 
terial and out of this kind of action in the 


274 


FAITH AS A FACTOR IN SALESMANSHIP 


early part of life that there comes that store 
house of material out of which the mature life 
can be built. The material and energy and 
knowledge, yes, and the experience stored up 
at that time, give that material which is 
needed in after life to build the real substan¬ 
tial structure which makes life worth while. 
Let the young man continue to work on his 
bridge to the moon. He is sure to store up 
enough material out of that work to at least 
build a wood shed later on. It is the very thing 
for a young man to have some honorable ambi¬ 
tion. Lack of ambition means failure from 
the start and the young man who is aiming at 
nothing and who cares not to rise, is already 
dead. There is no hope for him, only the sex¬ 
ton and undertaker can serve his purpose. 

But if it is sad to see a young man losing 
faith in himself, sometimes I think it is sadder 
to see a man in middle age beginning to live in 
the past, beginning to look back at the years 
that have gone and live entirely on past events. 
When the mind travels backward all the time 
there can be very little progress. When the 
mind is looking back to the days when the body 
was younger, then the footsteps are surely 
down hill and almost in every instance, the 
very thing that has caused this turning down¬ 
ward is the loss of faith in one^s self. Whether 


275 


A VISION OF LIFE INSUBANCE 


that has come about through lack of faith in 
humanity, or whether it has been bred purely 
out of the person’s own mind, the effect is very 
little different and the consequence is always 
the same. 

Have you seen a man soured on Society? 
One of those individuals who tells you how 
every gathering and every crowd that gets to¬ 
gether is for no good purpose, and how it 
should and would be different if he had the di¬ 
recting of things? One who makes a general 
complaint against humanity and the things 
which most people prize as the society of 
friends? We have all seen an individual of 
that kind and we have all seen how he fails to 
fit into any organization or any meeting, in 
fact, into Society at all. Very quickly do 
people drop him and leave him entirely out. 
He is completely ostracized as an undesir¬ 
able individual. He is unsociable. He has no 
faith and can expect no faith from anyone 
else. To take this attitude is to confine one’s 
self to a very narrow, limited scope of terri¬ 
tory in one’s travels through this world. He 
gains no pleasure from the society of friends. 
He makes very few friends. Perhaps one can 
transact some kinds of business without de¬ 
pending upon Society, without depending 
276 


FAITH AS A FACTOR IN SALESMANSHIP 


upon friendship, but it surely would be a very 
cold, unsatisfactory business to most people. 
Life would not be worth living if one could 
even gain great riches in the transaction of 
his business and yet at the same time made no 
friends, nor built up any faith. Life would 
surely have a dreary ending for a man of this 
kind. 

I think that it is necessary in order to be 
successful in business and especially in the 
selling business, that the salesman have that 
faith in Society which makes him look on the 
bright side of the doings of people in his com¬ 
munity, makes him take hold of the hand of 
his friend in the social hour and feel the re¬ 
sponse of friendship that is outside of busi¬ 
ness. Surely this is a necessary requisite to 
the life insurance man. 

How can any individual belong to a church 
and have no faith in its creeds? The creeds 
and principles of the church are founded on 
traditions which are centuries old. We can¬ 
not know them by our own knowledge—they 
must come down to us in records and in tradi¬ 
tions and we must have faith in these things 
in order to have any belief in the principles 
and creeds of the church. We derive our 
knowledge and our faith in all church matters 
277 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

and in the foundation of it from the wells of 
history which are twenty centuries deep. We 
cannot see the bottom and yet we believe. We 
believe because those traditions and those his¬ 
torical facts have come down to us through the 
practices of the ages and besides our con¬ 
science tells us right from wrong and we ac¬ 
cept the faith of the church without question. 
The salesman is very much in the same posi¬ 
tion. He must accept with that faith which 
goes without question many of the facts which 
surround his sales. Very often it is impossible 
for the salesman to have knowledge, actual 
knowledge and experience, of that phase of his 
business which probably is his strongest talk¬ 
ing point in making his sale, but he has placed 
confidence in what someone else has told him 
and that confidence has grown into a faith 
which builds itself into his very selling argu¬ 
ments and becomes a part of himself. It is 
just as necessary that he do this as it is that 
the church member take the faith in his church 
without question. And the faith to him as a 
salesman is just as important as the faith to 
the church member in his religion. 

Every true, loyal American citizen has 
faith in his Government. Away back in the 
beginning of our Government, Washington 
had faith in the establishment of the principles 
278 


FAITH AS A FACTOR IN SALESMANSHIP 

of Government which have come down to the 
present time. He had such strong faith in 
those principles that he planted them very 
firmly at the beginning of our Government. 
They have proven to be true principles. They 
have proven to be the principles which have 
successfully guided our country for a longer 
period of time as a Republic than any other 
Government has ever traveled. Those prin¬ 
ciples were founded directly upon the declara¬ 
tion of faith in humanity which a little body 
of men had just previously agreed upon and 
given utterance to, a declaration which ^ Vent 
ringing around the world.’’ Those principles 
grew and expanded as the Nation grew. To 
them were added principles which the neces¬ 
sity of the times brought forth and they have 
kept on growing until the Nation stood head 
and shoulders above any in all the world and 
yet it is one of the youngest. Seventy years 
after these principles were firmly established 
and started on their way to a successful Na¬ 
tion, the clouds hung dark and low. The great 
Lincoln kept that faith which Washington had 
planted and made the Government stronger 
by stamping out all the principles and ideas 
which threatened to destroy the Government 
of Washington. Every time that the Nation 
and the principles on which it is founded is 
279 


A VISION OF LIFE INSUEANCE 

threatened, there has been someone come forth 
as a leader to guide the people out of their dan¬ 
ger and back into the national pathway of suc¬ 
cess. Our own common people who in the re¬ 
cent World War became our soldiers and sail¬ 
ors, again kept that faith of Washington and 
Lincoln and kept it with their tears and their 
blood and their lives. 

When the United States entered the great 
World War, she was able through history and 
experience to take a broader and a better view 
of war and its consequences than any nation 
has ever done before. On that day the men 
in charge of national affairs knew that the 
war would grow to be a serious affair, that it 
would take billions of money to finance it, that 
it would take thousands of lives of individuals 
to win it, that it would have an end, and that 
the years which would follow the end of the 
war were more serious than the time during 
• which it was carried on. Those men, everyone 
of them, had faith in their Government and so 
did every other patriotic American citizen. 
They knew she would come through whatever 
situation presented itself because it would be 
handled in a satisfactory manner that would 
bring results. And it was in those days and 
with those kinds of views before them that 
they made preparation, not only for the carry- 
280 


FAITH AS A FACTOR IN SALESMANSHIP 

ing on of the war, but for the readjustment pe¬ 
riod which would come after. And as we are 
just emerging from that readjustment period, 
we see how wisely they planned and how well 
they looked into the future. They knew that 
that period would be the greatest of them all, 
that if we were not prepared for it there would 
ride through this land and through all the 
thickness of our population, hunger and want 
and starvation and death. There would be 
failures in business and there would be dis¬ 
grace to the Nation. 

The United States is young enough that it 
is just at the foot of the hill of success. It is 
looking forward all the time. It cannot look 
backward through the years of a like expe¬ 
rience which it has had before, but be it said 
to the credit of the American people that their 
foresight in business and National affairs is 
better than any other people in the world. 
Just as we had that faith when we entered the 
great World War and brought thousands and 
thousands of soldiers to defend the Nation, 
just so we have had the same great faith dur¬ 
ing the readjustment period. 

In the early days of the war, we developed 
the Federal Reserve Banks which had just 
been established so that our currency and our 
money and our business would be stabilized. 

281 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

And as we emerge from the last days of the re¬ 
adjustment, when prices have dropped from 
the heights to which no one ever dreamed they 
could rise, down to the very bottom, it is 
on this one act of establishing these banks that 
the faith of the people of the United States has 
been so well centered that there has been 
hardly a ruffle of the business waters. It is 
true that we have had complaint on all hands 
because of business conditions but these com¬ 
plaints are no worse than we find at any time 
when there is a falling off of trade. It is true 
that business men and everybody have had 
losses, but it is equally true that they took 
their profits in previous years, but the one 
great thing that has been apparent through it 
all is that the people have at no moment been 
frightened. Had they become frightened 
there would have been a panic no matter what 
conditions we had to avert it, but that faith 
in Government and Government affairs which 
extends to every home in our land, kept all of 
our people in the even tenor of their ways with 
no business failures in the entire country. 

Yes, there were a few bank failures in one 
state. North Dakota had decided that it could 
stray away from the principles of the Govern¬ 
ment of the United States and run its own lit¬ 
tle Nation on socialistic principles, dictated by 
282 


FAITH AS A FACTOR IN SALESMANSHIP 

a few men with socialistic ideas, and they 
established a banking system for North Da¬ 
kota which provided for a central State bank 
with a capital of $2,000,000.00, and the people 
of the State and the people of the United 
States realized that they were outside of the 
principles of good finance and they could not 
sell a single one of the bonds of their bank. 
Yet they tried to transact business on ‘^as¬ 
sumed capital.’^ They went along after a 
fashion until the readjustment period came 
and until they needed to have assistance, and 
then the real test came. Their theory was that 
they could do business alone. This worked 
while times were good, and so long as they did 
not need assistance from anybody they could 
get along. This is true at all times, but when 
the time came that they needed the assistance 
of other banks, the banks who could then give 
assistance had no faith in them and they could 
not get the help of one dollar. Then there 
were bank failures in North Dakota. This 
proves the theory to an absolute certainty that 
there must be faith and confidence in the Gov¬ 
ernment in order to have it succeed. 

During the readjustment period, faith ac¬ 
complished it all. When it was demonstrated 
that the people could not be frightened, that 
they had perfect faith and confidence in their 
283 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 


Government, then there was no question about 
the result. If there is no faith, then there is 
no Government, there is anarchy as there is in 
Russia today. 

A short time ago I stood at the top of the 
Washington Monument and looked down upon 
our Nation^s Capital. Grouped around within 
my sight were the many buildings which house 
the machinery of our Government. In the 
Navy Yard was a great steel monster which 
is the awe of all nations. I could see the 
Treasury Building from which emanates the 
financial system that has stabilized our Na¬ 
tion and the entire world. All this told to me 
somewhat of the strength of our Nation and 
I thought then that it was built out of financial 
and material strength, and yet I knew that 
that alone could not make any Nation solid 
enough that it could live and progress. On the 
banks of the Potomac, I could see a huge 
memorial erected to the great martyr Presi¬ 
dent, Abraham Lincoln, and across the river 
I could see the white gates of Arlington, 
Fame’s eternal camping ground, where glory 
guards the most sacred ground in all the 
world, the great silent city of our soldiers’ and 
sailors’ dead. And a little distance away over 
a great White Dome, fioated the dearest fiag 
in all the world, the Stars and Stripes, which 
284 


FAITH AS A FACTOR IN SALESMANSHIP 

has never yet known dishonor or defeat. Then 
I realized that the sentiment of our people that 
erects monuments to our great and successful 
men and the tenderness with which they guard 
our sacred burial grounds, give another 
phase to our national existence. And as I 
stood there I thought of the faith that we citi¬ 
zens have in our country, that faith which has 
carried it on as a Government and as a Nation. 
As I saw the common people working below, 
happy and contented, I knew why this Gov¬ 
ernment of ours has gone on and on as a 
great and successful Nation. It is the faith 
of our citizens. 

I thought as I stood there I could see the 
various businesses extending out as the spokes 
in the great wheel of our National existence, 
running out as it were from our Nation’s Cap¬ 
ital to the utmost limits of our land. And it 
seemed that out one road I could see the mer¬ 
cantile businesses of the Nation, housed in the 
great business blocks, capitalized with the 
enormous mass of money which carries on that 
business, doing a service to our people, selling 
them the necessities of life, and providing for 
their comforts in a way that makes ours stand 
out as the greatest mercantile and commercial 
Nation in the world. I thought that that busi¬ 
ness is unsurpassed by the mercantile business 
285 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

of any other Nation, how proud we should be, 
and how loyal and faithful our citizens are to 
that business. They give it their support, 
they give it their patronage, they make of it a 
great success. 

And I could see out in a different direction, 
extending across our country, the great rail¬ 
road business, capitalized and transacted with 
twenty-five billions of dollars, a great busi¬ 
ness, lending comfort, and pleasure, and con¬ 
venience to all the citizens of the country, car¬ 
rying them from one place to another, carry¬ 
ing the freight for the sale of all articles of 
farm and commerce, taking its place as one of 
the great businesses. During the period of 
the war how well did this great industry serve 
its Nation, how loyal the citizens were, how 
much confidence they placed in the institution, 
how many inconveniences they put up with, 
how it is coming out of the reconstruction pe¬ 
riod, and how its rails shine across the conti¬ 
nent from ocean to ocean, as the greatest sys¬ 
tem of which any Nation can boast. 

And out another way were the banking 
houses of this country, into whose doors the 
citizens daily carry their money and their 
savings, building up the greatest banking 
business that any country has. So this sys¬ 
tem was given a very important part in the 
286 


FAITH AS A FACTOR IN SALESMANSHIP 

transaction of all affairs during the World 
War, a great mission in the reconstruction 
period. It has built itself up and purged it¬ 
self of all unwise and unfair methods, until it 
stands forth a great clean arm of our Govern¬ 
ment without which we could hardly exist. 
How well have the people patronized this insti¬ 
tution, and what faith they have in it, and how 
they have carried it on and on to its present 
position as first in the world. 

And then down another great White Way, 
there was a business greater than them all, a 
business that has done more for humanity 
than all of the other businesses put together,— 
the Life Insurance Business. Grouped along 
this great White Way were more than 300 
great institutions towering up to the sky, out 
of which emanate the great good that life in¬ 
surance can do, out of whose offices have been 
sent thirty-five billion dollars of “I promise to 
pay,” this much added to the wealth of the 
United States; this much added to the savings 
of its people; this much built up as a great 
wall against poverty and ignorance; this much 
built up as a great fortress to protect the 
homes and people of the greatest Nation of the 
earth. This business extending out through 
all the land, stood there shining forth as the 
greatest business of them all. And out along 
287 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

the way were the workers which represent this 
great institution and looking I could see the 
homes of our people, the homes of our citizens, 
the homes which are the support of the Na¬ 
tion, and I knew that the strength of our Na¬ 
tion does not lie in the mercantile houses, nor 
in the railroad companies, nor in the banking 
houses, nor in the life insurance business, but 
in the homes of our land. I know that the 
home is the foundation of it all. I know that 
if the home is good and happy that the whole 
Nation is good and happy, that if the homes 
were destroyed and overthrown, as they are 
in Russia, that we would have darkness and 
anarchy. And as I looked away toward the 
west I could see a quarter of a million of life 
insurance men, the emissaries of these great 
Life Insurance Companies, going forth as the 
good Samaritans of the world, going from 
home to home to see that everyone of them is 
protected and kept safe. I could see this life 
insurance man as he went into the homes that 
were mortgaged. I could see him as he con¬ 
vinced the owner of that home to protect his 
loved ones against the day when the mortgage 
might be foreclosed. I could see the great good 
that he did in that act. I could see him go 
into the homes where the father has been 
taken away, where the family has had a great 
288 


FAITH AS A FACTOR IN SALESMANSHIP 

struggle to keep a roof over their heads and 
food for their sustenance. I could see him as 
he pleaded with and convinced the member of 
that family who was the support thereof, to 
protect it against such another disaster. I 
could see him as he went into the homes where 
there is a lack of thrift and as he convinced the 
members of the home to become more thrifty 
and saving through the forms of life insurance 
policies. I could see the great good that he 
was doing. I could see him as he went into the 
home that is happy in its contentment, where 
the head of the house is still alive, where there 
is yet an unbroken circle, and then I could 
realize that during all the days of his life he 
has been struggling to strengthen the Nation 
and I knew he is guided by that same Being 
who strengthened the arm of Washington in 
his struggle for independence, and who guided 
Lincoln in the days which were dark and dan¬ 
gerous. At night time when he came into the 
home with this unbroken circle, I could realize 
the strength that lies in the home of our peo¬ 
ple. I realized that it was there that the power 
of our Nation began and it was there that its 
responsibility ended. 

I could see him as he went into that house, 
greeting the grandparents, who probably were 
tottering in their old age, but who were happy 
289 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

because they had no fear of poverty, they had 
the wisdom to protect their old age by life in¬ 
surance. I could see the son who has grown 
to manhood and who has taken on the respon¬ 
sibility of the home and built around him that 
American family which is the backbone and 
sinew of the best Government in the world. 
And I could see at his side the wife who has 
helped in all his trials and hardships in main¬ 
taining that home. I could see them around 
the supper table, all of the children in their 
proper place, and this man with his strong 
arms of toil, who has realized his responsi¬ 
bility to his loved ones, calling down God’s 
blessings on his home, and then it seemed to 
me that there was no mystery why this Gov¬ 
ernment has existed so long as it has. It 
seemed no mystery to me that at our great 
Capital there is built the most substantial 
buildings that the hand of man can build, to 
house the machinery of our Government, be¬ 
cause all of it is built on faith. The faith of 
one hundred and ten million people makes this 
Government so solid that it can do anything 
that the mind of man can imagine. 

And then it occurred to me,—do the people 
of this country have confidence and faith in 
their life insurance business? I looked again 
over the great institutions which I have men- 
290 


FAITH AS A FACTOR IN SALESMANSHIP 

tioned, extending out from our Nation’s cap¬ 
ital, and said, “If they have faith to build the 
greatest mercantile businesses, if they have 
faith to build the greatest railroads, if they 
have confidence and faith to build the greatest 
banking business, it is their faith and their 
confidence which has built the greatest life in¬ 
surance business in the world.” Every life 
insurance man should get this vision of his 
business—that it is built entirely through the 
confidence and faith of our citizens. 

EVERY BUSINESS TRANSACTION IS BASED ON 
FAITH 

The pioneers in a country deal with whom¬ 
ever they come in contact with in order to 
exist. As soon as there is more than one store 
to deal with, the people select with whom they 
shall deal, and whenever there is a choice it is 
their faith and confidence which controls every 
business transaction. The Indians dealt with 
William Penn. He got along with them. He 
made treaties with them, but the Indians mur¬ 
dered almost all of the Colony of Jamestown. 
It was a lack of faith and confidence in these 
simple people that caused disaster to the 
Colony. 

Honest faith lasts and carries on. Some¬ 
one has said that in progress there is the 
291 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

greatest joy of all ,—the joy of going on. 
And it seems to me that that is a great 
thought,—the thought of going on and on 
and of accomplishing something. But the 
man who goes on must have a vision. It has 
been said that without a vision the people per¬ 
ish and if that is true of a nation it surely is 
true of the individual. A man without a vision 
will not get very far in the business world. A 
long time ago people prided themselves on 
being hardheaded business men without imag¬ 
ination. We are just as proud of our hard- 
headed business men today, but we realize that 
they are men of very great imagination and 
great vision; imagination to think out the 
great problems of life and the conditions in 
which they are liable to be placed and to pre¬ 
pare themselves for the handling of that kind 
of a situation; hardheaded business men it is 
true and yet they are men with the greatest 
imagination that we have. At all times in 
their business they will be found with their 
eye to the telescope, looking just as far into the 
future as possible, preparing the way just as 
much as it is possible for them to do, so that 
what they accomplish is done with prepara¬ 
tion. They know that ^'beyond the Alps lies 
Italy’’ and that if that is the objective, then 
they must in some way get across. It takes 
292 


FAITH AS A FACTOR IN SALESMANSHIP 

their imagination and their vision and their 
preparation and their strength, and all that 
they can put into their life, to do their busi¬ 
ness in a little bit better way than anybody 
else has yet done it, so that they can be a bet¬ 
ter success than their competitor. We are 
proud of the man with imagination today. 
We recognize him as one who is doing things, 
who is accomplishing results and who is in the 
forefront of the men of the Nation. 

An element that is necessary in every 
transaction and especially in every sale, is 
truth. Truth inspires confidence, and faith 
out of that confidence erects a great business. 
Truth in your selling will do more to inspire 
confidence than anything else. We can re¬ 
member back to the day when the life insur¬ 
ance man was the man who could talk the 
most, who could paint the most vivid pictures 
of misrepresentation, but today the man who 
carries the title of the best life insurance man 
in the community, is that man who lays his 
policy on the family table and shows to the 
husband and the wife and the children who 
are growing up that it will protect the entire 
home, that it is so simple in its truthfulness, 
that it easts a roof over their entire transac¬ 
tions which will protect them from all the 
storms of life. Wherever there is faith there 
293 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 


is ease in the transaction because faith sets the 
mind at rest and it makes the sale. There can 
be no meeting of minds unless there is confi¬ 
dence and faith between the individuals. 

Then you, as a life insurance man, should 
have just the same kind of faith in your busi¬ 
ness that you have in your Government. Your 
Company is built upon the same lines as this 
great Nation is built. The same general prin¬ 
ciples enter into its transactions and guide it 
in its business. If you have faith in your Com¬ 
pany, then you will have faith that it will do 
everything that it promises to do. You know 
that it will carry out every transaction in 
every home of every insured that you now call 
your friend. That every beneficiary will in 
years to come cast his blessings upon your 
head because you represent a Company whose 
sterling worth has carried it on as a perpetual 
institution, and your Company is a perpetual 
institution, just the same as your Government 
is perpetual. It started back at a certain time 
and it will go on and on for all time, meeting 
every promise that it has ever made, perform¬ 
ing every obligation that it has or ever will 
have, and doing all the good that it promises 
to do, all that you promise to your friends that 
you can do. It is faith that enables it to do 


294 


FAITH AS A FACTOR IN SALESMANSHIP 

that, the faith of its policyholders—its agents, 
and its friends. 

If you have faith in your Company, you 
have faith in its methods. You do not contin¬ 
ually keep saying that some other method is 
better, but you enter into the transaction 
knowing that the people who have laid out the 
rules and principles of government for the 
transactions of the business of your Company, 
have made them the best they know how. You 
recognize these rules and these methods as the 
rules you are to follow, and the best that there 
are until they are changed. You know that all 
of these methods that have been set up have 
been made for a reason and that that reason 
was sufficient for them to be established. If 
you have faith in your Company, you have 
faith in its officers and in its representatives. 
You have that kind of faith which places you 
above the backbiters and the person who con¬ 
tinually picks out the faults of the individual. 
There never was a church existed in all the 
world but which was unfortunate enough to 
have representing it people who were not per¬ 
fect and yet they did not in any way reflect on 
the principles of the church. It did not in any 
way reflect on the principles which caused it to 
exist and made it a success. I say if you have 
295 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 

faith in your Company, then it is that faith 
which makes you just a little bit better and 
bigger than the picking out of an individual 
and setting up whatever little fault he may 
have, and thereby proving that your Company 
is not what it represents itself to be. That 
kind of faith is no faith at all. The person 
who judges by that kind of a standard 
does not get very far and is sure and cer¬ 
tain that his views and his judgment will have 
no effect in changing the policy of the Com¬ 
pany. The policy of our Company is bigger 
than any of us individually and that policy 
will stand and carry on just like the principles 
of our Government stand and carry on, no 
matter who fills the offices. 

If you have faith in your Company then 
you have faith in its policies and the faith in 
its policies means that you believe and know 
without question that they will be carried out 
to the letter. So far as you know, since your 
connection with the Company, they have been 
carried out just exactly in that way. Prior to 
your personal knowledge you know nothing to 
the contrary, and are told that it has always 
kept the faith. Therefore your faith must 
carry with it the belief and a full belief in 
every promise that is made in every policy 
296 


FAITH AS A FACTOR IN SALESMANSHIP 

that you sell. If you do not have this perfect 
faith in these things, then your doubts will 
make you fail. Your doubts will lead you into 
entanglements which will involve you to that 
extent that you cannot make a success in the 
life insurance business. But faith will help 
you to make every sale that you have. It will 
help you to find more prospects. It will help 
you to build your business bigger. It will 
make you love your work and your fellow men 
and nothing yet has ever been invented by any 
man which will stop or interfere with the man 
who loves his work. 

The life of Christ was a life of faith. It 
was faith that led the Wise Men across the 
desert and brought them to the manger in 
which Christ was laid. It was faith that made 
these men know that the Saviour of the world 
had then been born. It was faith that made 
the learned men listen to the twelve-year-old 
Christ in the Temple, as He asked them ques¬ 
tions which mystified them. It was faith that 
sent John the Baptist to prepare the way for 
the Saviour of the world and sent him to his 
death at the judgment of an unjust king. It 
was faith that made the blind man see. It was 
faith that made the sick man well when he had 
been let down through the roof in front of 
297 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 


Christ as He addressed the people. It was 
faith that fed the multitude with the loaves 
and fishes and it was faith that brought the 
multitude to hear the greatest sermon that 
was ever preached, the Sermon on the Mount. 
It was the greatest declaration of faith that 
was ever uttered to the world when Christ said 
“Suffer little children to come unto Me,” and 
it was faith that rolled away the stone for 
the mother of Christ, and as it was faith 
through the entire life of our Saviour, so it is 
faith with us from the cradle to the grave. We 
are born with a faith in humanity, with a per¬ 
fect faith and trust in all about us and every 
one of us can remember back to the time when 
our faith was first shaken. Maybe it was 
when we lost our faith in Santa Claus, but the 
faith of children is the simple faith that is 
given us by the Creator. Then we believe in 
ourselves, we believe in our parents, we believe 
in all about us. There is no finer sentiment in 
all the world than the faith of the mother in 
the child, that faith which makes her cling 
to him through thick and thin, which makes 
her take his part, whether right or wrong. It 
was this faith which prompted that great 
poem by Kipling: 


298 


FAITH AS A FACTOR IN SALESMANSHIP 


MOTHER o’ MINE 

If I were hanged on the highest hill 
Mother o' mine, 0 mother o' mine! 

I know whose love would follow me still, 

Mother o' mine, mother o' mine! 

If I were drowned in the deepest sea. 

Mother o' mine, mother o' mine! 

I know whose tears would come down to me, 
Mother o' mine, 0 mother o' mine! 

If I were damned of body and soul, 

Mother o' mine, mother o' mine! 

I know whose prayers would make me whole, 
Mother o' mine, 0 mother o' mine! 

No matter in what kind of a situation the 
child is placed, there is that faith in the 
mother which makes her take up his cause 
even with her blood and her life. It is that 
faith which is based on hope and prayer and 
all that is good and the faith that carries far¬ 
ther than them all. This same kind of faith 
extends through all business transactions. 

I would say that if you will ground your¬ 
self in faith and optimism about your business 
and if you have the right kind of energy and 
the right kind of vision, that you will soon 
have the joy of going on and that joy will bring 
you greater success and better success than 
299 


A VISION OF LIFE INSURANCE 


you have ever had before. If you can make 
your sales on faith you will build up a confi¬ 
dence among your patrons that will bring you 
up to success, and if you have the vision of 
your business that enables you to see its possi¬ 
bilities ahead, then you can live. You can live 
in that love of faith which will bring you that 
greatest joy of going on. 


300 





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